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THE NEW LIFE IN CHRIST 


A STUDY IN PERSONAL RELIGION 



The New Life 

in Christ 


A STUDY IN PERSONAL RELIGION 


BY 

JOSEPH AGAR BEET, D.D. 


LAMAR & BARTON, Agents 
NASHVILLE, TENN. DALLAS, TEX. RICHMOND, VA, 


'EV45o l 
;B4ix 


** Thou hast made us for Thyself; and restless is our heart till it finds 
rest in Thee.”—A ugustine* 



Tmnsfer from 
U.S. Soldier-, Home Uty 
0 ^- 28,1931 


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Printed in the United States of America 


First Edition Printed June, 1916 
Reprinted September, 1917; June,’1920; July, 192a 


LMW Z’sQ'Z'a 


PREFACE 



‘HIS volume is a necessary sequel to an earlier 


± one entitled Through Christ to God, in which 
I endeavoured to set forth the historical basis of the 
Christian faith and hope. The present volume goes on 
to delineate the goodly structure of the Christian life 
which rests securely on that firm foundation. In the 
former volume, what may be called the theological 
element claimed almost exclusive attention. In the 
present one, inward spiritual experience and practical 
life occupy a large place. Each volume needs to 
be supplemented by the other. For theology is 
useless unless it bears fruit in righteousness and 
peace and beneficence; and inward experience is fitful 
and uncertain unless it rests on reliable external 
evidence. 

The New Life in Christ pourtrayed in this volume, 
I have endeavoured to investigate according to the 
principles of scientific research. We have found it 
to be one organic whole consisting of various elements 
mutually related and holding definite relations to other 


PREFACE 


yi 

matters of human thought and knowledge. This mode 
of study has given to us, in some measure, a connected 
and intelligent view of the whole subject of personal 
religion. 

This department of theology has received from 
theologians much less attention than have the great 
doctrines of the Atonement and the Person of Christ 
dealt with in the former volume. It has been for the 
more part left to devotional and practical works which 
have treated of special topics singly without any attempt 
to view the Christian life as a whole. But without such 
view of the whole subject there can be no comprehensive 
grasp even of its details. And no study of details 
can reveal the more wonderful harmony pervading the 
whole. 

The comparative neglect by theologians of the subject 
now before us is in part accounted for by the fact that 
its investigation is much more closely connected with 
the student’s own spiritual life than is the investigation 
of what may be called the objective doctrines of the 
Gospel of Christ— i.e. t those which set forth that which 
God has long ago done for us in Christ We now 
consider what God does in us day by day by His 
Spirit dwelling in our hearts. This can be known only 
by actual experience. By this, therefore, is limited each 
one’s power to delineate the New Life in Christ. And 



PREFACE 


vii 


a theologian is naturally reluctant to enter upon a 
course of teaching which will expose the imperfections 
of his own spiritual life. But, however this may be, the 
inner life of the servants of Christ needs, and will well 
repay, careful systematic investigation. The spiritual 
insight needful for the highest success in such investiga¬ 
tion, I cannot claim. I write only as a careful student oi 
Holy Scripture and as one who has derived from that 
study abundant spiritual blessing. This personal benefit 
prompts a hope that others may be benefited by that 
which has been profitable to myself. And perhaps the 
manifest defects of my work may prompt others who 
have followed the Master more closely than I have done 
to enrich the Church with the profounder lessons which 
they have learned. 

As embodying original research, this volume will, I 
hope, be found useful even to those most familiar with 
the Bible and with theology, and especially to those 
who, as Christian pastors, are called by the great 
Shepherd to feed His flock. It is, however, written in 
a style which will be easily understood by all intelligent 
and devout men and women; and especially by all 
Christian workers. These last need, as an equipment 
for their work, an accurate and comprehensive know¬ 
ledge of the Gospel of Christ. For they can teach only 
what they know. And only by conveying to other** a 



via 


PREFACE 


knowledge of Christ can we lead them to vital union 
with Him. 

I therefore cherish a hope that this literary work 
of mine may render help to many who in various 
ways are “ fellow-workers for the Kingdom of God.” To 
render such help is the aim and reward of theological 
research. 

The Index of Scripture Passages I owe to Mr. G. A. 
Clayton, son of an old and valued friend, Rev. A. 
Clayton. 


Plymouth, 



CONTENTS 


rACK 

Lect. L Onr Starting-point and our Aim • • . i 

Results attained in the former volume—No effectual relief of our 
deep spiritual need—Yet in our search for deliverance from 
the bondage of sin we are not without hope—The path before 


PART I. 

THE RUIN. 

Lect. II. Man as created: Flesh and Spirit • • • 4 

The distinctive and multiform garb of life—Living bodies dependent 
on their environment—An unseen element—The spirit is 
higher than, yet conditioned by, the body—Animals attain 
their highest well-being by a life according to flesh—To man, 
such life is degrading—New Testament teaching about JUsk 
and spirit— Gen. ii. 7. 

Lect. III. Man under Probation.10 

Certain inevitable sequences—The laws of nature—Other more 
important sequences : the Moral Sense—They come from the 
Author of our being—The far-reaching influence of our body 
—Man’s inborn power of choice—Also due to his Creator- 
Man’s dual nature is the basis of his probation. 

Lect. IV. Sin and Bondage ...••• 17 

All have sinned—Universal moral bondage taught in the New 
Testament—Confirmed by experience—Spiritual death— 
limitation of the metaphor—The Law of Sinai—Unavailing 
efforts to obey it—They increase our self-condemnation— 
Teaching of Paul —One ray of hope. 


X 


CONTENTS 


Lect. V. The First Fall and its Results . 

The universality of sin suggests an inborn fault—Eph. iL 3, 
Psa. li. 4, 5— John iii. 5, 6 , Job xv. 14—Rom. v. 12—Men 
die because Adam sinned—Other consequences—Inherited 
moral bondage—Apparent injustice—It is removed in Christ 
—This inference is not overturned by Geology—For the Moral 
Sense lies beyond its ken—Evidence scanty, but sufficient. 

Lect. VI. Man unsaved . 

Two elements in man, each claiming to control him—-Man yielded 
to the lower—Universal moral inability—Yet there are in 
man remains of good—Rom. vii. 14-25—Divine influences— 
The inborn Moral Sense—Rom. ii. 14—A moral displacement 
—A theory which meets all the facts of the case—The 
salvation needed. 

Sin —Trangression of limits—Often prompted by bodily needs— 
The origin of sin. 


PART II. 

THE RESTORATION\ 

Lect. VII. Repentance, Faith, Justification • • • 

The historic working out of the purpose of salvation— Personal 
salvation—Repentance—The voice of pardon—Faith—Justi¬ 
fication—Does not remove all consequences of sin—A new 
hope. 

Lect. VIII. Adoption .... ... 

The Son of God—Later-born sons—Angels—Israel—Sons of God 
by faith—Adoption—Its great significance—Rom. viii. 19, 23 
—Heirs of God—Not sons by creation—Acts xvii. 28—The 
prodigal son—The universal sonship ignored—Adoption by 
faith—Its practical worth. 

Lect. IX. The Spirit of Adoption. 

The Spirit of the Son—A Guide and Saviour—Abba, Father— 
Christ’s promise of the Spirit—The Spirit in the Old Testament 
—In the New Testament—The divine-human cry — The 
revealed love of God. 


rAGB 

25 


37 


46 


50 


63 




CONTENTS 


xi 


PACK 

Lect. X. Assurance of Salvation.72 

Rom. viii. 16—A joint testimony—The witness of the Spirit— 

The moral guidance of the Spirit—The argument in Rom. 
viii. 12-17—A confident assurance of the favour of God—The 
witness of our conscience—Forgiveness of sins in I John- 
Eternal Life—The doctrine guarded. 

Lect. XI. The New Birth.83 

A metaphor derived from natural birth—The water of Baptism— 
Various New Testament teaching—The doctrine of Adoption 
contrasted with that of the New Birth—Their harmony— 
Results attained. 


PART IIL 

THE WA Y OF HOLINESS. 

Lect. XII. Holiness in the Old Testament . • . 93 

The word holy in the New Testament recalls its use in the Old— 

The holy objects stood in special relation to God—Objective 
and subjective holiness—Earlier uses of the word—The later 
books of the Old Testament—The word holy in the Septuagint 
—Two Greek words—The Apocrypha. 

Lect. XIII. The Holiness of Christ . 108 

The earlier use continues—The Holy Spirit—The Incarnate Son 
—His devotion to God—John and Jesus—Devotion to the 
purpose of salvation—The holiness of the Eternal Son. 

Lect. XIV. The Holiness of the Servants of Christ . 115 

The saints — A contrast to the Old Testament—The saints at 
Corinth — Subjective Christian holiness — The Christian 
temple, priesthood, and sacrifices—1 Cor. vii. 14—1 Tim. 
iv. 4—Summary. 

Christian holiness explains the Levitical Ritual. 





xii 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Lect. XV. The New Life of Devotion to Christ . .127 

The devotion of the Incarnate Son—It saved the world—Christ 
claims from us a like devotion—Excellence of the ideal life 
thus set before us—It involves love to God—God’s earlier 
love to us—It prompts love to our fellows, and ceaseless 
activity for their good—Restored harmony of man with God, 
and of man with man. 

Lect. XVI. The New Life in the Spirit of God . 140 

What God claims, man cannot give—It must be God’s work in 
man—Through the Spirit—A distinctive feature of the Gospel 
-—Foretold in the Old Testament. 

Lect. XVII. The New Life in Faith. • • • .148 

A human condition—Faith—Teaching of Paul and others—Sanc¬ 
tifying Faith—Distinguished from Justifying Faith—Implies 
consecration—Appropriateness as a condition—Three insepar¬ 
able elements of the New Life—New aspect of religion. 

Lect. XVIII. The New Life in its further relation to 

Christ.160 

For Christ—Through Christ—Like Christ—In Christ, and Christ 
in us—With Christ—Dead, buried, risen, and enthroned with 
Christ—Fresh light on the death and resurrection of Christ. 

Lect. XIX. The New Life in its relation to Sin . . 174 

Continued conflict with sin — We are now victorious — Yet sin is 
not annihilated—Gradual destruction of sinful appetites— 
Through faith—Confirms our faith. 

Lect. XX. The New Life in its relation to the Law . 182 

The authority of the Moral Law—Dead to the Law—Yet the Law 
is to be fulfilled in us—Romans vii. 1-4—The gift of the Spirit 
—Paul and J ames—Their deep harmony. 



CONTENTS 


xiii 


PACK 

Lect. XXI. The New Life in its relation to Things 

Around.189 

Man’s dependence on his environment—The successful struggle 
against it—All things work together for good—Plato—Paul’s 
teaching verified—All is now changed—Right with God, and 
with all else. 

Lect. XXII. The Christian Conflict . 198 

The athletic contests of Greece—The Christian athlete—He does 
not fight alone—The victory is by faith—Two aspects of the 
contest—The peace of God. 

Lect. XXIII. Perseverance in the New Life . • .204 

Paul’s joyful confidence—Yet victory is conditioned by faith. 

Lect. XXIV. Spiritual Growth . 208 

Faith sometimes gradual—Definite stages—Gradual development— 
Growth in knowdedge. 

Lect. XXV. The Means of Grace. Prayer . . .215 

The preached Word—Teaching—Study of Holy Scripture—The 
Sacraments. 

Prayer—Sanctioned by Christ—Paul’s desire for his readers’prayers 
—Rationale of prayer—God will answer prayer only in 
harmony with His will—Various forms of prayer—Inter¬ 
cession of Christ and of the Spirit. 

The Church of Christ. 

Lect. XXVI. Results attained. • • • • *331 


PART IV. 

7 HR DIVINE AND HUMAN IN THE CHRISTIAN LIFE . 
Lect. XXVII. The Eternal Purpose.241 

The one purpose of creation and redemption—Not prompted by 
foreseen merit of man—Teaching of the New Testament— 
Election and predestination. 




CONTENTS 




PAGE 

Leot. XXVIII. Tlie Progressive Realisation . . . 250 

Creation of matter and life and reason—Suffering and sin—The 
historic development of the kingdom of God—Inward spiritual 
progress of individuals. 

Lect. XXIX. Human Freedom 255 

Difference between calamity and crime—Man’s consciousness of 
his freedom—Its moral helpfulness—The Philosophical Neces¬ 
sity of J. S. Mill and H. Spencer—Its baselessness—Man’s 
freedom is a part of God’s eternal purpose. 


Lect. XXX. The Divine-Human Christian Life • . 263 

Divine influences, and man’s self-surrender to them—Teaching of 
the New Testament—Not inconsistent with the omnipotence 
of God—The Christian life is both passive and active—God 
hardens the impenitent—Slow progress of the Gospel. 

Another theory—Teaching of Calvin and Augustine—Arminius 
and the Remonstrants—The Synod of Dort—The teaching of 
Wesley. 

Lect. XXXI. The Eternal Realisation • • • .278 

The way of salvation—Purposed from eternity—Partial present 
accomplishment—Real progress—Prospect of further pro¬ 
gress —The perfect and Anal realisation. 


PART V. 

THE REVELATION OF GOD IN THE NEW LIFE IN CHRIST. 
Lect. XXXII. God our Father.284 

Marks of an intelligent and moral Creator—Confirmed by the 
Gospel—And by the spiritual life of the servants of Christ— 

God our Father—His love to man—God is love—The holinea* 
of God—A new and definite conception of God. 




CONTENTS 


xv 


PAGE 

Lect. XXXIII. The Son of God.296 

Unique dignity of Christ—The love of God manifested in the Son 
—Creation through the Son—The God-man—Three elements. 

Lect. XXXIV. The Spirit of God .... 301 

In the Old Testament and the New—Other teaching—The Para¬ 
clete—The Spirit of the Truth—A Person distinct from the 
Father and the Son—The Procession of the Spirit—The Creed 
of Constantinople— Filioque —Practical significance of the per¬ 
sonality of the Spirit—The Holy Spirit. 

Lect. XXXV. The Eternal Three in Ono . • . .314 

Claims of Jesus of Nazareth—A new conception of God—Father, 

Sen, and Spirit—Three Persons and one God—The love of 
God manifested in Christ—Yet sin was not needful for the 
full manifestation of God—Distinct functions of the three 
Divine Persons—Divine avenues of the self-manifestation of 
God. 

Lect. XXXVI. Angeb, Good and Bad • • • • 323 

Meaning of the word angel —The angel of Jehovah—The cherubs— 

An angel-interpreter—Michael, the angel-prince—Successive 
ranks of angels. 

The great adversary—Demons—The unseen and personal realm of 
evil—Created by God, yet fallen. 

Lect. XXXVII. Man at rest in God . • • . . 33a 

Man created by God and for God—His fall —Conscious ruin—The 
promise of pardon—Faith, pardon, gift of the Spirit—Christ 
claims unreserved devotion—This devotion God works in us— 

All things now changed—Growth—The means of grace—The 
final consummation—The religion taught by Christ is the 
highest form of religion known to man. 








* ( 












V 











r 















LECTURE I 

OUR STARTING POINT AND OUR AIM 


I N an earlier volume entitled Through Christ to God 
I have endeavoured to prove by evidence of various 
kinds that beyond and above the visible universe is an 
intelligent and loving Creator and Ruler; that the 
Moral Sense of man is His Voice proclaiming His Will 
touching the action of His intelligent creatures; and 
that beyond the grave exact retribution awaits all men. 
These earliest results of our inquiry awoke in us a 
consciousness of personal sin and a fear of coming 
punishment From this dark apprehension we found 
no refuge either in the material world or in our own 
moral sense ; except some faint and general indications 
of the goodness of God. Further research, however, in 
a different direction, proved to us that Jesus of Nazareth, 
whose moral teaching and personal character at once 
won the homage of whatever in us is noblest and best, 
taught that all who believe the good news of salvation 
announced by Him are, in spite of their past sins, 
received into the favour of God as heirs of eternal life ; 
and taught also that this salvation comes to them through 
His own approaching and voluntary death upon the 


2 


OUR STARTING POINT AND OUR AIM [Lect. I 


cross ; that He claimed to be a sharer of the infinity 
and eternity of God, thus giving to men a new concep¬ 
tion of God, a conception now conterminous in the main 
with human progress; and that in proof of this claim 
He rose from the dead. The resurrection of Christ 
was to us complete proof both of the justness of His 
claims and of the truth of the good news of salvation 
announced by Him. And this proof was confirmed by 
the effect of Christianity, as manifested in the immense 
superiority of the Christian nations to all others. 

The results of this theological research did something 
towards supplying, in one direction, the deep spiritual 
need evoked by the indications of punishment beyond 
the grave. But they gave no effectual relief. For our 
inborn Moral Sense asserts, with an authority we dare 
not contradict, that God smiles only on those who obey 
His commands. And this obedience, long experience 
proves that we are unable to give. Indeed our efforts 
to do right reveal the presence in our hearts of a hostile 
power compelling us to continue in sin. From this 
moral bondage, we now seek deliverance. Such deliver¬ 
ance is the needful complement of the pardon of past 
sin which we have already traced to the lips of Him who 
was raised from the dead. 

In this search we are not without hope. For the love 
of God manifested in the costly gift of His only-begotten 
Son to die for man assures us that He will not leave 
incomplete the work for which Christ died. And the 
power manifested in His resurrection from the dead 
assures us that God is able to raise even sinners from 



Lect. I] OUR STARTING POINT AND OUR AIM 


3 


that moral death which is the most terrible element in 
the penalty of sin. This needful moral resurrection 
into new life is the specific object of the present 
volume. 

We shall consider, in PART I., the state of man as 
unsaved, and the relation of this state of ruin to the first 
sin of the first man. In Part II. we shall survey the 
gate through which sinners pass from bondage into 
liberty. Our next task will be to trace, in PART III., the 
path of life entered at the narrow gate, looking at it 
from various points of view, up to the close of man’s 
probation on earth. This new life we shall find to be 
in its source and nature superhuman ; and we shall 
seek, in PART IV., the relation between its divine and 
human elements. This investigation will be to us, in 
PART V., a new and fuller revelation of God, and of each 
Person of the eternal Trinity. And in God thus revealed 
to man, and in the conception of God thus obtained, we 
shall find satisfaction for every noble yearning of man, 
a stimulus to activity of the best kind, a profound and 
secure rest of man in God. 

Throughout this volume I shall assume as correct the 
results attained in the former volume.* These I shall 
bring to bear on the moral and spiritual life of men. 
By so doing I shall vindicate for Theology its claim to 
be the Science of Religion. 



PART I 

THE RUIN 


LECTURE II 

MAN AS CREATED: FLESH AND SPIR11 

I N order to understand the salvation announced by 
Christ, it is needful first to understand in some 
measure the condition and position of man as unsaved; 
and to trace his present state of sin and bondage back 
to that in which he sprang from the Creator’s hands. 
This last we can best do by studying those elements 
of his present condition which evidently belong to his 
original constitution. 

Wherever we find life, we find it clothed in a dis¬ 
tinctive visible and tangible form. This outward garb 
of life presents infinite variety, a variety far greater than 
that which distinguishes from each other the various 
forms of inorganic matter, i.e. matter which has no 
immediate connection with life. Yet, amid infinite 
variety of form, all living objects, animal or vegetable, 
are closely related both in their chemical composition, 
their cellular structure, and even in the functions of 



Lect. II] MAN AS CREATED: FLESH AND SPIRIT 


5 


vegetable and animal life. Moreover, the various kinds 
of animals are, in different degrees, similar even in the 
general arrangement of their bodies. 

Living bodies differ from all others in their great 
dependence on their environment, in their need of food, 
in their growth and reproduction, and in their liability 
to change and decay. Without air and food, or if 
exposed to extremes of temperature, the distinctive 
features of life will cease, and animal bodies will in 
time go back into the simpler forms of inorganic matter. 

The phenomena of life, and especially of human life, 
reveal the presence in living animal bodies of an 
element invisible and intangible and altogether different 
from the material form in which it dwells. The 
presence in living bodies of this unseen element is 
made very conspicuous by the phenomenon of death. 
In some cases, e.g. in suffocation, there is no perceptible 
change in the visible organism. But there has been a 
change in environment; and, as a result, the functions 
of life have irrevocably ceased. In a short time the 
distinctive features of life vanish, and the once active 
body returns to dust. Evidently, in animals, and most 
conspicuously in man, are two elements belonging to 
altogether different realms of being, yet interpenetrating 
at every point, a visible body akin to the graveyard sod 
with which it soon will mingle, and an invisible spirit 
within. The link holding them together is the life. 
When this link is broken, each element returns in its 
own direction: “ the dust will return to the earth as 
it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it.” 



6 


THE RUIN 


[Part I 


Of these elements, the spirit is manifestly the higher 
and nobler. We cannot but think of the body as 
merely living and of the spirit as the source and 
principle of life; of the body as moved and of the 
spirit as moving it. In the human spirit chiefly is 
seen man’s infinite superiority to animals. It is the 
seat of intelligence, of the moral sense, and of all that 
goes to make up our conception of personality. We 
have accustomed ourselves to think of man as still 
existing in happiness or woe even after the body has 
been resolved into dust; but we cannot conceive of 
the man as himself existing after the phenomena of 
mind and spirit have finally ceased. 

We notice now that the whole of human life and 
the entire activity of the human spirit are conditioned 
by the constitution of the body, and in great part by 
that constitution which is common to all animals. This 
bodily constitution compels us to spend hours every 
day in sleep, during which the spirit is inactive and 
unconscious; and to spend time in obtaining food for 
ourselves and for those dependent upon us. Frequently, 
as in the case of miners and fishermen, these efforts 
to obtain food involve hardship and peril. The peculiar 
structure of our bodies, making us dependent on the 
mysterious laws of animal life and on our environment 
near and remote, exposes us to anxiety and pain, and 
will some day bring us down into the deep valley of 
death. In short, the whole of human life is limited, 
and in some measure shaped, by the constitution of our 
body. 



Lect. II] MAN AS CREATED: FLESH AND SPIRIT 


7 


Of animals, so far as our observation goes, the entire 
activity is not only limited and moulded, but is 
prompted, by the necessities and pleasures of bodily 
life. To this source may be traced all they do. In 
them the body reigns supreme, as the determining 
principle of their whole being. They live “ according 
to flesh.” And, so doing, they attain the highest well¬ 
being possible to them. Their manifest destiny is to 
live, feed, grow, beget offspring, and die. And it is 
attained by obedience to the instincts of the body. 

In man, such a life is at once felt to be both unworthy 
and degrading. He is capable of better things ; and to 
these he must rise, or sink into intellectual and moral 
ruin. All experience teaches that, for the well-being of 
both body and spirit, the spirit must rule and the body 
obey. Otherwise, in most cases, the body will lack its 
needful food and clothing and protection; and in all 
cases the spirit will fall a prey to moral evils worse than 
death. 

All education has for its aim the control of the 
body by the intelligence and the moral sense. And a 
moral instinct which we dare not contradict compels us, 
under penalty of universal condemnation, to educate our 
children, i.e. to train them to make the body obey the 
dictates of the spirit within. Indisputably the spirit is 
designed to rule and the body to obey ; and only thus 
can man attain the well-being of which he is capable. 
The normal human life is one in which the body is the 
submissive organ for the self-manifestation of the unseen 
spirit within. 



8 


THE RUIN 


[Part 


The above contrast and its moral .significance are 
conspicuous in the Bible, and especially in the Epistles 
of Paul. We read frequently of the flesh , the living 
material common to all human bodies and common in 
a somewhat different form to animals ; of the body , the 
complex organism belonging to each living creature ; 
and of the various members of the body; all these in 
relation to the moral life of men. In contrast to them 
we have the soul , the seat of individual life, common 
(in the Bible) to men and animals; the spirit , which is 
always, when the two are compared, higher than the 
soul, and which man has in common with God ; also the 
mind y the seat of intelligence and thought. As examples 
of this contrast in its moral significance, I may quote 
Rom. viii. 4, “ who walk, not according to flesh , but 
according to Spiritv. 13, “if ye live according to 
flesh ye will die, but if by the Spirit ye put to death 
the actions of the body ye will live ; ” ch. vii. 23, “I 
see another law in the members of my body carrying 
on war against the law of my mind and taking me 
captive to the law of sin which is in my members.” 
Also Gal. v. 16, 17 : “Walk by the Spirit and ye will 
not accomplish the desire of the flesh. For the flesh 
desires against the Spirit and the Spirit against the 
flesh." 

Whatever be the precise meaning and compass of the 
word flesh in these and many similar passages, this use, 
in a moral significance, of a word denoting primarily the 
peculiar material of which living bodies are composed 
suggests or proves that in the thought of Paul the body, 




Lect. II] MAN AS CREATED: FLESH AND SPIRIT 


9 


owing to its peculiar composition, exerts or tends to 
exert an immoral influence over the spirit within. 

Since human life on earth is never found apart from 
flesh, and since the entire activity of man is limited by 
the constitution of his body, the word flesh frequently 
describes the entire man and sometimes the entire race. 
So Acts ii. 17, “I will pour out of My Spirit on all 
flesh ; ” Rom. iii. 20, “ By works of law shall no flesh be 
justified before Him.” Notice also Matt. xvi. 17: “ Flesh 
and blood have not revealed it to thee, but My Father 
which is in heaven.” This usage is another witness to 
the importance of the material constitution of the body 
as a great factor of human nature. 

It is at once evident that the mutual relation of the 
visible living form and the invisible animating principle 
within, a relationship as wide as human life and found 
also in the lower forms of life in proportion as these 
approach the higher life of man, pertains to human 
nature as it sprang from the Creator’s hands and to the 
original creative purpose of God. The dual nature of 
man is conspicuous in the account given in Gen. ii. 7 : 
“Jehovah God formed man, dust from the ground, and 
breathed into his nostrils a breath of life, and man 
became a living soul.” The complex and far-reaching 
relationship of these two elements of human nature 
underlies and conditions at every point the moral and 
spiritual life of man. It will therefore be a suitable 
starting point for further study of human nature in its 
ruin, its rescue, and its moral and spiritual development 
in Christ 



LECTURE III 


MAN UNDER PROBATION 
E have just seen that in all human life on earth 



V V are two distinct elements, a visible and material 
body and a conscious and active spirit; and that in this 
last dwells the mysterious personality of man, which 
distinguishes him from the lower animals, the ultimate 
source, as we shall learn in Lect. XXIX., of human action. 
And we have seen that each of these elements is in 
large measure dependent on the other ; that the well¬ 
being, and the continuance in life, of the body depend 
very much on the action of the spirit, and that the state 
of consciousness of the spirit, especially pleasure or pain, 
depends on the body and on certain forces operating in 
it which the spirit can only in small part control. 

This dependence of the welfare of the body upon the 
action of the spirit and personality within is in large 
measure not direct but indirect. It is determined by 
certain inevitable sequences older than the individual 
man and many of them older than the race. Each one 
can, within certain limits, choose his own action. But 
its results are determined by fixed laws from which he 
cannot escape. 


10 



Lect. Ill] 


MAN UNDER PROBATION 


II 


Some of these sequences touch only bodily life. 
They determine pleasure and pain, health and sickness, 
life and death. We speak of them as the laws of nature, 
and of some of them as the laws of bodily life. As thus 
used, the word law denotes the uniform action of natural 
forces, as this action is observed and written down by men. 

Other sequences equally inevitable and beyond man’s 
control, and vastly more important, are observed in the 
moral life of men, eg. that of sin and shame and moral 
degradation, and that of right doing and self-respect 
and clearer moral vision and increased moral strength. 
These sequences differ from the former class in that 
they give rise to, or are indissolubly connected with, 
a conception unique in human thought, viz. man’s 
deep sense of moral obligation. Through them speaks 
to us, sometimes approving, often condemning, a voice 
of supreme authority from whose judgment there is 
neither appeal nor escape. This voice is the Moral 
Law. It is no mere description of the uniform action 
of natural forces, but a prescription, by an authority 
we cannot contradict, of a path in which we are bound 
to walk. This Moral Law, or Moral Sense, claims 
unreserved allegiance. Sometimes in obedience to it 
we are bound, under penalty of self-condemnation and 
moral degradation, to set at nought material con¬ 
sequences and to act in a manner injurious or possibly 
destructive to the body. For the Moral Law and the 
moral sequences associated with it differ from the laws 
of the material world in that these last are not, wherea3 
the Moral Law is, a final rule of human action. 



12 


THE RUIN 


Part I 


Just as the bodily well-being of men and animals 
is conditioned by continuance in an activity and an 
environment marked out for them by nature, so all 
experience proves that the highest well-being of man 
is conditioned by obedience to the law written within. 
Evidently, just as nature has given water as the environ¬ 
ment of fishes, and air as that of birds, and has made 
their continued life conditional on their continuance in 
this suitable environment, so there is marked out for 
man, in his own Moral Sense, a path along which alone 
he can attain his highest well-being. 

The indisputable and absolute authority of the Moral 
Sense, so deeply inwoven into the thought and literature 
of all ages and nations, we have already (Through 
Christ to God , Lect. III.) traced to the intelligent Author 
of the universe and of man. If so, the Moral Law is 
an expression of His will touching the action of His 
intelligent creatures. In other words, He who made 
man marked out for him, in the law written on the 
hearts of all men, a path in which He would have him 
go; and made his well-being conditional on his progress 
along that path. And if so, the Moral Sense is an 
all-important element, as is the mutual dependence of 
body and spirit, of man as originally created. It is 
a powerful influence from the Author of our being 
drawing us towards and along the only path in which 
we can attain our highest well-being. 

Other influences rooted in the original constitution of 
man and closely connected with his environment draw 
him sometimes in an opposite direction. Not unfre- 



Lect. Ill] 


MAN UNDER PROBATION 


*3 


qucntly the pressing needs of bodily life can apparently 
be supplied only by disobedience to the law written 
within. Still more frequently forbidden objects are 
pleasant or apparently helpful. Sometimes the Moral 
Law alone seems to stand between a man and all 
earthly good. At other times the path marked out 
by the Moral Law leads to hardship or peril or death. 
In all these cases the needs or pleasures or aversions 
of bodily life are a powerful influence prompting us to 
do that which our Moral Sense condemns. 

This influence of the body is far-reaching in its effects. 
For, the dependence of the body on various external 
and visible objects needful or pleasant to it gives to 
these objects special value; and prompts us to make 
them the chief aim of life. Such an aim tends to mould 
a man’s entire action and thought. His intelligence 
becomes unconsciously a servant of his body; and 
his entire activity of body and mind becomes a striving 
for material objects around. Moreover, since these 
objects are only to a small extent under his control 
or within his reach, man’s felt dependence upon them 
becomes frequently a degrading bondage to things 
infinitely inferior to himself. 

These mutually antagonistic influences reveal to man 
an element in himself, distinct from each of them, viz. 
his own inborn power of choice, the mysterious pre¬ 
rogative of personality. A voice within speaks to him 
from above with an authority he cannot question: 
another voice within speaks to him with the authority 
of those material conditions which rule his bodily life 



*4 


THE RUIN 


[Part I 


To one or other of these voices he must submit. To 
which of them he will submit, rests with himself. He 
is thus the ultimate source of his own actions, and 
the sole arbiter of his own destiny. For upon his 
choice depends his highest well-being or deepest moral 
degradation. 

Already we have seen that the Moral Sense belongs 
to man as he sprang from the Creator’s hands. To the 
same source must be traced the mysterious prerogative 
of personal choice. It is equally evident that man’s 
dependence on bodily life and on his environment is 
also a part of his original constitution as received from 
God. This is not disproved by the immoral influence 
of the body on those who make it the aim of life. The 
needs and desires of the body injure us only when they 
usurp a place for which they were not designed, and 
become the ruling principle in man. Kept in submission 
to the dictates of the Moral Sense, of that element in 
man which is designed to rule, they afford a most valu¬ 
able moral discipline, opening to man a moral growth 
and grandeur otherwise impossible. It is true that 
man’s dependence on bodily life and its environment 
makes life to be toil and conflict. But, as we proceed, 
we shall find that God has provided means by which to 
every man that toil may have abundant recompense, and 
that conflict may be a victory bringing with it the spoils 
of victory. 

The only explanation of the facts of human nature 
Is that He who made man gave to him a freedom of 
personal choice and action like His own divine freedom, 



Lect. Ill] 


MAN UNDER PROBATION 


15 


thus making man the sole arbiter of his own action and 
destiny ; that He inwove into human intelligence an 
authoritative guide of action, and put man in a body 
dependent on its material surroundings, thus compelling 
him to choose whether to yield allegiance to that in him 
which he knows to be most fit to rule or to that which 
he knows to be designed to obey. In other words, when 
the Creator breathed into a material body a higher life 
and thus made man, He put him in a state of proba¬ 
tion, exposed to contending influences, in order that by 
right choice and action man might attain moral worth. 

So closely inwoven in human life, as noticed above, is 
the contrast and mutual dependence of flesh and spirit 
that we need not wonder that this all-pervasive relation 
is the basis, or at least the starting point, of man's 
moral probation. And, inasmuch as the lower forms 
of life lead up to man, we may well believe that the 
bodily constitution even of these earlier and lower forms 
was designed by God to lead up to the moral life of 
man. 

It is worthy of note that the account of the creation 
of the dual nature of man in Gen. ii. 7 is followed almost 
immediately by a limitation set by God to man’s desire 
for food. By affixing this limit, God put man at his 
creation under moral probation. 

We find then, from indisputable facts of human 
nature to-day, that man as originally created consisted 
of two elements, one closely akin to his Creator, the 
other akin to the lower animals and like them dependent 

on the material world ; that between these very different, 
3 



i6 


THE RUIN 


[Part I 


and in some measure hostile, elements was placed a 
personal power of self-determination ; that each of these 
elements tends, by its nature, to control man’s choice 
and action ; and that all this was ordained by God in 
order to test man’s loyalty to that in him which is 
noblest and best and which ever leads him up to God, 
in order that by personal moral victory man may ever 
rise towards God 



LECTURE IV 

SIN AND BONDAGE 


W E have already seen (Through Christ to God , 
Lect. X.) that the various writers of the New 
Testament assume frequently that all men are guilty of 
personal sin. This assumption underlies everywhere 
the Gospel of Christ. For this last is essentially an 
announcement of pardon. And, where no sin is, there 
can be no forgiveness. 

To prove the truth of this assertion, is both needless 
and useless. The literature of the world, wherever it 
touches morals, is an acknowledgment of universal sin. 
But unless we are immediately conscious of personal sin, 
neither the abundant testimony of moralists nor the 
authority of Holy Scripture will convince us. Christ 
offers rest only to the weary and heavy laden. All 
others lie outside the scope of the Gospel. 

That all men are not only guilty of past sin but are 
in present bondage to sin, is assumed in Rom. vi. 6, “ in 
order that we be no longer slaves to sin ; ” in v. 12, “ let 
not sin reign as king in your mortal body, in order to 
obey its desiresin w. 17 and 20, “ye were slaves of 
sin ;" in v. 19, “ ye presented the members of your body 


i8 


THE RUIN 


[Part I 


slaves to uncleanness.” The long contrast, in this 
chapter, of the past and present condition of the readers 
implies throughout that formerly they were held fast 
by a power hostile to righteousness and compelling them 
to pursue a path of sin. That this bondage is recog¬ 
nised by law, or in other words that it is the punishment 
prescribed by law for personal transgression, is taught 
in Rom. vii. 1-4, where Paul compares his readers to 
a woman formerly bound by law to her husband but 
now set free by his death. This comparison implies, as 
Paul teaches elsewhere, that the Law of God presented 
a hindrance to the deliverance of the sinner from the 
hostile power of sin. 

A more full and graphic account of this bondage is 
given in vv. 14-25. The writer finds himself unable to 
do what he desires, and compelled to do what he hates. 
He notices that what he vainly wishes to do is good, 
and that that which he is compelled to do is bad. From 
this he draws the terrible but inevitable inference that 
an enemy has entered, not into his country or his house, 
but into his own body, and within the citadel of his own 
inner life is carrying on war against him and is leading 
him helpless into captivity. In this awful sense, Paul 
declares that he is “ sold under ” the power of “ sin.” 

This picture of moral bondage is confirmed by 
Rom. i. 24, 26, 28, where three times we read that the 
heathen were given up by God to shameful sin. For, 
the conspicuous repetition of the word gave-up suggests 
irresistibly surrender to a hostile power against which 
their own unaided moral efforts were powerless. In 



Lect. IV] 


SIN AND BONDAGE 


19 


Eph. iv. 19 we read that the heathen gave themselves up 
to wantonness. 

The same teaching may be traced to the lips of Christ 
as His words are recorded in John viii. 32-36. To some 
Jews who had already put faith in Him, Christ an¬ 
nounced, “ the truth shall make you free.” This they 
resented as implying present bondage. But Christ 
justified His promise of liberty by the general and 
solemn statement, “ Everyone that does sin is a slave of 
sin.” This implies that apart from the Gospel all men 
are committing sin and are, according to Christ’s asser¬ 
tion, slaves of sin. For unless all men are sinners and 
in bondage, this general assertion would not prove that 
the persons in question needed liberation. 

This emphatic teaching of Paul and of Christ is 
confirmed by a wide-spread experience. Every action 
tends to form a habit; every sin to form a habit of sin. 
Our past life is a present power urging us along the 
path we have hitherto trodden. In this abiding influence 
of our own past transgressions we trace the presence of 
a mysterious and tremendous power of evil. To this 
present power of past sins, the literature of all ages and 
nations and the annals of crime bear abundant testimony. 
Multitudes have felt themselves to be carried along and 
carried downward by immoral forces in themselves 
which they were unable to resist. And all have found it 
impossible to do right except by strenuous resistance 
to a hostile force within. 

This present bondage resulting from past sin evokes 
in us a dark apprehension of more terrible results to 



20 


THE RUIN 


[Part I 


follow. The loss of moral liberty reveals how far man 
has fallen below the moral dignity for which he was 
created. Thus moral bondage is itself the deep shadow 
of eternal death. 

Another and very important description of the unsaved 
is given in Eph. ii. 1-3. The readers of the Epistle are 
said to have been formerly dead by reason of their 
trespasses and sins. They walked in a path marked 
out for them by the course of things around, by the 
material world and the present age, directed by the 
inward influence of a spiritual potentate. Both Paul 
and his readers lived and moved among “the sons of 
disobedience,” men whose moral nature was derived 
from the principle of disregard of God’s commands, and 
whose moral or rather immoral environment was deter¬ 
mined by the desires of bodily life. They were working 
out their own desires, whether bodily or intellectual. 
And so doing, they were “ children of anger,” i.e. men 
on whom rests the frown of God, being in this respect 
“ like the rest ” of mankind. These last words assert 
that the account just given describes the state of all 
men apart from Christ. And, that in v. 5 Paul repeats 
the phrase in v. 1 “ dead by reason of trespasses ” and 
goes on to speak of a new life from God, implies that 
vv. 2, 3 are an exposition of what is involved in this 
spiritual death. 

The same phrase meets us again in Col. ii. 13 ; and in 
1 Tim. v. 6, “ she that lives wantonly is dead while she 
lives.” The same thought, viz. that sin and the con¬ 
sequent anger of God involve spiritual death, is found 



Lect. IV] 


SIN AND BONDAGE 


21 


in John iii. 36, “ He that believes in the Son has eternal 
life: he that disobeys the Son will not see life, but the 
anger of God abides on Him* So ch. v. 24: “has 
eternal life and comes not into judgment, but is passed 
out of death into life.” 

The metaphor of spiritual life and death underlying 
this phraseology, an element common to the writings 
of Paul and John, deserves careful attention. Life is the 
normal condition of organic matter: of this normal 
condition, death is the absolute and final cessation. 
In the moment of death, all the functions of life cease, 
the body falls a helpless prey to corruption and returns 
more or less quickly to the simpler condition of inorganic 
matter. Death places a man beyond reach of human 
help. While there is life, there is hope. Friends may 
comfort and assist: a physician may help recovery. 
But in the presence of death all human aid is vain. 

These ideas we must cautiously transfer to the men 
said to be dead by reason of their sins. This phrase 
can only mean that the unsaved are in the abnormal 
state of a moral corpse, that they are a helpless prey 
to ever-increasing corruption, that from this ruin no 
human hand can save them, and all this in consequence 
of their own sins and of God’s anger against sin. 

A corpse is utterly unconscious of things around. 
And it has often been noticed that they who live in 
sin are to a large extent indifferent to the vast realities 
of the unseen world. But here we must be careful not 
to press the analogy too far. No metaphor is valid at 
every point A corpse can do as little to hinder as to 



22 


THE RUIN 


[Part i 


help its own resurrection. But the whole teaching of 
the Bible implies, as we shall see in Part IV., that 
salvation is altogether conditional on the sinner’s self- 
surrender to divine influences. Those dead by reason 
of their sins still have a conscious existence. Probably 
none are altogether unconscious of influences drawing 
them towards that which is right and good : and probably 
all are more or less benefited by them. All that the 
metaphor fairly implies is that they who have not been 
saved from their sins are under the frown of Him 
whose smile is spiritual life, and that in consequence 
of His anger they are a prey to corruption from which 
they and their fellows are as powerless to save them 
as is a corpse to save itself from the inevitable cor¬ 
ruption which dominates all the dead. 

The powerlessness of sinners to save themselves finds 
clear expression in Rom. viii. 8 : “ They that are in 
flesh cannot please God.” This can only mean that 
they who are controlled by the constitution of bodily 
life cannot by any power of their own obtain the 
favour of God. 

To the above picture must be added an important 
element derived from the history of our race. The law 
written upon the hearts of all men has received, according 
to the confident testimony of both Old and New Testa¬ 
ments, an all-important counterpart and confirmation in 
the Voice of God at Sinai as recorded and expounded 
in the Jewish Scriptures. This written Law dominates 
so completely the entire thought of ancient Israel, in 
marked contrast to all other ancient nations, that we 



Lect. IV] 


SIN AND BONDAGE 


*3 


cannot doubt its divine origin. No fact in the early 
history of the world is better attested than that through 
Moses God gave to Israel definite moral commands and 
a definite ritual. 

The external law thus given secures at once the 
allegiance of our Moral Sense, and strengthens its 
authority. In many cases the combined authority of 
the outward and inward law evokes efforts to obey. 
Such efforts are never more than partially successful. 
And moral elevation derived from partial obedience 
does but reveal the shortcoming of this obedience. For 
every right act gives us a clearer view of the lofty and 
just claims of the Moral Law. 

These unavailing efforts increase our consciousness of 
moral bondage, and thus deepen our self-condemnation 
and our fear of punishment to come. The divine 
authority which speaks in the Moral Sense and still 
more clearly in the written Law presents to us sin in 
the light of rebellion against God. Sin becomes an 
offence against a definite Person far above all other 
personality who claims our obedience and devotion. 
The thought of God, evoked in us first by contemplation 
of the material universe, then by the inborn Moral 
Sense, is now strengthened by the manifestation of God 
in the history of our race. Unfortunately, this mani¬ 
festation does but make us more conscious of helpless 
moral bondage. 

This condemnation pronounced by the written Law 
is conspicuous in the teaching of Paul. In Rom. iii. 19 
he declares that the Law speaks in order to bring all 



24 


THE RUIN 


[Part I 


the world silent and guilty before the bar of God. In 
Gal. iii. 23 he writes that himself and his readers “ were 
kept in guard under law.” So 2 Cor. iii. 6 : “ the letter 
kills.” In Col. ii. 14 we read of “ the handwriting 
against us with the decrees, which was opposed to us.” 
Evidently, in the ancient law given to his nation the 
Pharisee read, in spite of his outward morality, his own 
condemnation. 

Such is man apart from the Gospel of Christ, as 
depicted in the New Testament: everyone guilty of 
personal transgression, and in consequence of it in 
present bondage to the hostile power of sin, under the 
anger of God, and in a state of ruin from which no 
human hand can rescue. 

Only one ray of hope remains. That God gave to 
man a law, reveals His interest in man. Now the Law 
cannot save. For a mere command speaking to man 
from above cannot break moral fetters. Consequently 
the Law cannot give life : Gal. iii. 21. Therefore, as 
a means of salvation, it is a failure. But, if so, it was 
a foreseen failure. For God, when giving it, knew its 
insufficiency as a means of salvation. But God cannot 
select a means insufficient for the end He has in view. 
We therefore infer with confidence that under apparent 
failure must be a further purpose. Thus the Voice 
of Sinai, which, as we first heard it, announced only 
condemnation, awakens hope of a salvation which, by 
itself, the Law cannot give. 



LECTURE V 

THE FIRST FALL AND ITS RESULTS 


W E have seen that the writers of the New Testa¬ 
ment assert or assume everywhere that all 
men are guilty of personal transgression of a law given, 
in some form, to all men ; and assume that all men are 
under a bondage to sin which compels them, unless 
rescued by supernatural power, to continue in a course 
of sin. We have also noticed, as a conspicuous element 
of this moral disorder, the subjection of that in man 
which is highest and noblest to the rule of the lower 
side of his nature. 

The universality of this moral disorder suggests 
irresistibly an inborn fault in human nature. And this 
is confirmed by a universal experience that we can do 
right only by strenuous resistance to influences from 
within tending to lead us astray. The facts of human 
life thus reveal a derangement, in human nature, of the 
moral order. 

This inference is supported by a few words in Eph. 
ii. 3 at the close of an important description of the 
former condition of those to whom Paul writes: “and 
were by nature children of anger as also the rest” The 


26 


THE RUIN 


[Part 1 


words foregoing assert that both Jews and Gentiles were 
formerly pursuing a path of sin : “ the sons of dis¬ 
obedience, among whom also we all had our manner 
of life formerly, doing the desires of the flesh and of 
the mind.” Paul then says, in the words quoted above, 
that this course of action brought them under the 
“ anger ” of God ; that in pursuing it they were guided 
“ by nature,” i.e, by forces born in them, as distinguished 
from influences which had come to them since birth ; 
and that in this they were like other men. In other 
words, the nature common to all men and received at 
birth contains in it a tendency to sin. 

The words “ by nature children of anger ” do not 
imply that God is angry with men because of the moral 
condition in which they were born. The actual ground 
of God’s anger is indicated in the words foregoing : 
“ doing the desires of the flesh and of their minds.” 
The word “ by-nature ” traces these actual sins to an 
inborn moral fault. We have a similar connection of 
thought in Ps. li. 4, 5 : “ Against Thee, Thee only, I 
have sinned, and that which is evil in Thine eyes I have 
done. . . . Behold, in iniquity was I brought forth, and 
in sin did my mother conceive me.” The personal sin 
here confessed was a result of culpable surrender to evil 
influences inherited at birth. The felt guilt of this 
surrender evoked the Psalmist’s cry for pardon. 

That man was originally created with these tendencies 
to sin, we cannot believe. That he was created liable 
to sin and exposed to temptation, is not inconsistent 
with the moral character of the Creator. For the only 



Lect. V] THE FIRST FALL AND ITS RESULTS Vj 

alternative to such liability to sin is the suppression of 
freedom and of all that gives worth to human life. But 
we cannot conceive a moral and loving Creator giving 
to man a positive bias to evil such as is implied in 
Eph. ii. 3 and Ps. li. 5. 

That the moral nature inherited by man at birth is 
radically defective, is taught also in John iii. 5, 6, where 
our Lord supports His assertion that without a new 
birth none can enter the Kingdom of God by adding 
* that which is born from the flesh is flesh.” Evidently 
He means that the nature derived from human parents 
is incapable, apart from the infusion of new life from 
above, of the blessedness which God has prepared for 
His people. Another confirmation of the same is Job 
xv. 14: “ What is man that he should be clean, and he 
which is born of a woman that he should be righteous ?” 

We now ask, Whence came this universal moral defect 
in human nature ? 

That human sin is later than human life, is implied 
in Rom. v. 12, “through one man sin entered into the 
world, and through sin death.” For this entrance of 
death through one man is further explained in vv. 15, 
17, “through the one man’s trespass, the many died.” 
So v. 16, “through one having sinned; ” and v . 19, 
“ through the disobedience of the one man the many 
were constituted sinners.” These passages imply clearly 
and conspicuously that, until one definite transgression 
of the first man, the race was sinless. 

The above quotations refer evidently to the story of 
the fall in Gen. iii., where we find man placed under a 



28 


THE RUIN 


Part I 


definite probation, exposed to a definite temptation, 
guilty of a definite sin, and under a definite curse. The 
whole narrative depicts this first sin as a new and evil 
era in the history of our race. Another reference to the 
same event is found in I Tim. ii. 14, “ the woman, having 
been deceived, came into transgression.” 

That this first sin of the first man was the source of 
the tendency to evil which, as is taught or implied in 
the passages quoted above, all men inherit by birth, I 
shall now endeavour to prove. In so doing, I shall also 
trace other consequences of the same first transgression. 

Paul teaches in Rom. v. 12, 14 that through the first 
sin “ death passed through to all men,” and “ reigned as 
king.” So vv. 15, 17. Similarly, 1 Cor. xv. 21, 22 : 
“through man came death ... in Adam all die.” 
These last words refer manifestly to the death of the 
body, which throughout the chapter is the dark counter¬ 
foil to the resurrection of the body: cp. v. 44, “it is 
sown an animal body, it is raised a spiritual body.” 
Manifestly Paul asserts that the reign of death to-day 
over all men is a result of Adam’s first sin. The same 
is implied in John viii. 44, “ he was a murderer from the 
beginning.” It is also taught in Wisdom ii. 23, “ God 
created man for immortality . . . but by envy of the 
devil death entered into the world; ” and in Sirach 
xxv. 24, “ because of her we all die.” But neither in the 
Old Testament nor elsewhere in the New, is the universal 
reign of death expressly and clearly traced to Adam’s 
sin. 

In Gen. ii. 17, death is represented as the threatened 



Lect. V] THE FIRST FALL AND ITS RESULTS 


29 


penalty of sin. As matter of fact, all men die. And, 
as we have just seen, Paul teaches that their death is a 
result of Adam’s sin. If so, the punishment threatened 
in paradise to Adam may be said to have been inflicted 
upon all his children. In this sense, his sin was impited 
or reckoned to them ; not that God looked upon them as 
though they had committed a sin which took place long 
before they were born, but that He laid upon them the 
punishment threatened to their father in case of dis¬ 
obedience. This use of the word may be illustrated by 
Philemon 18, where Paul asks his friend to reckon to his 
account any fraud committed by Onesimus: “ I will 
repay it” 

To this infliction upon Adam’s children of the punish¬ 
ment threatened to their father, refer probably the con¬ 
cluding words of Rom. v. 12, “ inasmuch as all sinned 
and v. 19, “ through the disobedience of the one man, 
the many were constituted sinners.” By inflicting on 
all men the penalty threatened to Adam, God may be 
said to have treated all men as if sharers in their father’s 
sin. This cannot have been an arbitrary act of God. 
We infer therefore that Adam’s descendants stood to 
their father in a relation so close that the punishment of 
death threatened to him fell also upon them. 

That, in consequence of this close relation, other 
effects of Adam’s first transgression fell upon his children, 
will soon appear. 

We have already seen that both Christ, as His words 
are recorded in the Fourth Gospel, and Paul in his 
Epistles teach that to commit sin is to surrender oneself 



30 


THE RUIN 


[Part I 


a slave to the power of sin ; and that this teaching is 
confirmed by the general experience of mankind. This 
universal sequence of sin committed and moral degrada¬ 
tion following must have determined the effect of Adam’s 
first sin. Indeed all experience teaches \hat the first 
step in a wrong path has consequences most serious. 
Frequently the entire subsequent downward course seems 
to be an almost inevitable result of the first wrong act. 
All analogy compels us to believe that by his first sin 
Adam fell into bondage to sin. And, if so, since moral 
sequences are linked together by the moral Ruler of the 
world, this moral bondage must have been a divinely- 
ordained and inflicted punishment of that first dis¬ 
obedience. Consequently, the punishment of Adam was 
twofold, viz. death bodily and spiritual, surrender of his 
body after a few years of toil to the worms, and immediate 
surrender of his spirit to moral bondage. 

That the former part of this penalty is inflicted on all 
Adam’s children, or in other words that they die because 
he sinned, we have learned from the clear teaching and 
argument of Paul. We have also observed that moral 
bondage, the second part of Adam’s punishment, is as 
widespread among his children as is the first part of it, 
viz. the doom of death. This universal moral bondage 
we have traced, in the pages of the Bible, to a fault in 
the moral nature inherited by each man at birth ; just 
as the bodily death of each may be traced to the bodily 
constitution received from his parents. This defective 
moral nature of man needs explanation. Surely it 
cannot be the immediate handiwork of a good and 



Lect. V] THE FIRST FALL AND ITS RESULTS 


3* 


righteous and almighty Creator. Some evil influence 
has come in between the original creation of man and 
the birth of men as we know them. What this evil 
influence is, we cannot doubt. 

If, as we have learnt from Paul and others, their 
mortality is due to Adam’s sin, to the same source 
must be traced this universal moral defect. If the first 
part of the penalty of Adam’s sin has been inflicted 
on his children, so has the second. In other words, 
we infer with confidence that by his first sin our father 
sold himself into bondage to sin and death : and that 
his children inherit that bondage. “ In Adam all die:” 
and we “ were by nature children of wrath, even as 
the rest.” 

The above inference is supported by our observation 
that bodily defects, leading often to an early death, 
and tendencies to sin, leading often to immoral lives, 
may not unfrequently be traced from father to son. 
This inheritance of moral qualities, themselves formed 
by moral actions, must be by the ordinance of Him 
who has linked together, in infinite wisdom, moral 
sequences. If so, the inheritance, by all men, of the 
bodily and spiritual consequences of Adam’s sin is but 
the earliest and greatest and furthest-reaching example 
of a principle apparently co-extensive with human life, 
and perhaps with all life. 

The doctrine, just expounded, that in consequence 
of Adam’s sin all men are born with a tendency to 
evil and with bodies doomed to die has, it must be 

admitted, at first sight an appearance of injustice. If 
4 



32 


THE RUIN 


[Part I 


it were the whole case, it could not, I think, be har¬ 
monised with the character of God. But it is not the 
whole case. In the two chief passages in which it is 
taught in the Bible, Rom. v. 12-19 and 1 Cor. xv. 21, 22, 
the doctrine that through Adam’s sin all men die is 
used mainly as a dark counterpart to the great doctrine 
that through the obedience of Christ they who accept 
the salvation offered to all men will reign in life eternal. 
Thus will be reversed in them not only the inherited 
result of Adam’s sin but the result of their own many 
transgressions. Our relation to Adam is involved 
in the solidarity of the race. This solidarity involves 
temporary hardship to individuals. But it is a gain to 
the race as a whole, and to everyone individually who 
accepts the free gift offered to all men in Christ. 

Just as Paul teaches in Rom. iii. 25 that under the 
Old Covenant God acted in His forbearance towards 
sin in a way which, apart from the coming death of 
Christ, justice would not have permitted, so, as we 
may infer from ch. v. 12-19, He acted, in the infliction 
of the penalty of Adam’s sin on all his children, on 
principles harmonised with justice only by the pre¬ 
determined gift of His Son to bear the death penalty 
of Adam and His children. 

Notice carefully that neither the inferences noted 
above nor the story of the creation and fall of man in 
Gen. ii. and iii. imply or suggest a long period of 
innocence. The first recorded moral act of man was 
transgression. Earlier than this we have only the 
intellectual discrimination involved in the names given 



Lect. V] THE FIRST FALL AND ITS RESULTS 


33 


to animals, a valuable indication that intelligence was 
earlier than sin. 

Nor are these inferences weakened by any geological 
evidence that the earliest men were on a low level of 
civilisation. For immature civilisation by no means 
implies moral corruption. About this, geological remains 
have nothing to say. Indeed they scarcely prove that 
the earliest men were savages. They rather point to 
progress, slow but sure; which is unknown among 
savage races. So far as I know, such races have 
not even traditions of progress like those recorded in 
Gen. iv. 2022. Nor have we an example of a savage 
tribe raising itself, unaided, into civilisation. Of such 
tribes, a universal feature is helpless stagnation. 

A more serious difficulty is the geological evidence 
that animals died long before man existed on earth. 
The force of this evidence cannot be resisted. Nor can 
we deny the close relation between the death of animals 
and that of man. We now ask^ How does this evidence 
bear on the teaching of Paul that all men die because 
Adam sinned? 

We have already (Through Christ to God\ p. 349) 
seen that the intelligence and moral sense of man 
cannot be accounted for by any of the forces known 
to be at work in the lower animals;* and therefore 
reveal in man the inbreathing of a higher life from a 
supernatural Source. Evidently, this higher life was 
designed to rule the lower and animal life in man. 

* This is well argued, by an eminent naturalist, in Wallace’s 
Darwinism , pp. 461-74. 




34 


THE RUIN 


[Part 1 


Indeed the welfare of man as a whole was made con¬ 
ditional on the submission of the lower to the higher 
side of his nature. Need we wonder that also the con¬ 
tinuance of human life in the form originally given was 
made subject to the same condition ? Certainly He 
who at first breathed the higher life of man into a 
bodily form closely related to that of animals, thus 
raising him infinitely above them, could have maintained 
in man this higher life even in spite of death reigning 
over all the lower animals. 

If this suggestion be correct, man was created neither 
mortal nor immortal, but living; his continued life being 
contingent on his own action, just as his own highest 
welfare, and to some extent his continued bodily life, 
are contingent now. Two elements in man claimed 
dominion over him; his moral sense, speaking to him 
through his intelligence with the authority of God, and 
the needs and desires of a bodily life akin to that of 
animals. Had h* obeyed the voice divine, obedience 
would have raised Mm above the doom of death, to which 
are subject the animal? around. But he yielded to the 
allurements of that in him which is akin to animals, 
and thus fell under the doom under which lies all 
animal life. If this be so, Adam’s death was a result 
of his own sin: for had he not sinned, he would not 
have died. And the wide prevalence of heredity in 
human life makes it easy to believe that his mortality 
was inherited by his descendants. If so, the universality 
of death to-day is, as Paul teaches, a result of Adam’s 
sin. 



Lect. V] THE FIRST FALL AND ITS RESULTS 


35 


The above suggestion seems to me to account fairly 
for all the known facts of the case. 

Against this suggestion, unsupported though it is by 
scientific evidence, Natural Science has nothing to say. 
For the origin of reason and of the moral sense lies 
at present altogether beyond its ken, in the realm of 
the unexplored supernatural. And, if so, it can say 
nothing about the conditions on which they were given. 
Certainly, in its ignorance of the supernatural, Natural 
Science has no right to contradict the teaching of the 
great Apostle who was a chief actor in a spiritual 
revolution which has regenerated the world. 

So closely related on its lower side is human life to 
the life of animals that possibly, had man been faithful 
to his higher nature, his victory would have eventually 
rescued even the animal world from the doom of death. 
It may be that these are included in “the whole creation” 
which, as Paul teaches in Rom. viii. 19-23, is waiting to 
share the coming deliverance of the children of God 
from their present bondage under the conditions of 
bodily life. 

It will be noticed that the geological objection, noted 
above, to the teaching of Paul about the origin of human 
death bears only indirectly and slightly upon our own 
important inference from various teaching in the Bible 
and from wide-spread facts of human nature that the 
universal moral weakness and bondage of man are due 
to Adam’s sin. 

It must be admitted that the evidence adduced in 
this lecture is much less direct and abundant than that 



36 


THE RUIN 


[Part I 


adduced in my last volume for the great fundamental 
doctrines of the Gospel. According to our need, we 
have received. The good news of salvation announced 
by Christ seems to contradict the condemnation pro¬ 
nounced, by an Authority we cannot gainsay, against all 
sin and all sinners. We therefore could not accept it 
if it were not supported by an authority equal to that 
which condemns us. And we found evidence, abundant 
and various and decisive, which left no room for doubt 
that the word of pardon is the voice of the Creator of 
man and of the universe. But, to every one who is 
loyal to that in him which he knows to be the law of 
his being, the universality of sin and of moral bondage 
is known by direct experience. It therefore needs no 
confirmation. It is, nevertheless, confirmed by express 
and conspicuous teaching of Paul and of Christ; and 
in less definite form it underlies the entire Bible. And 
this testimony is supported by that of the literature of 
all nations and ages. That this universal moral ruin 
is due to the first sin of the first man, is of less importance 
to the moral and spiritual life of men living to-day. 
But it is of great interest to those who endeavour to 
study as a whole the moral government of God. And 
it is supported by evidence which seems to me, when 
fairly weighed in its various parts, sufficient to banish 
all doubt 




LECTURE VI 

MAN UNSAVED 



HE foregoing results, we shall now sum up, and 


1 weave together into a picture of man apart from 
the salvation announced by Christ. 

Into a bodily form closely allied with, though con¬ 
spicuously superior to, all earlier living bodies, God 
breathed an intelligence and a capacity for intellectual 
growth surpassing infinitely that of animals. This 
intelligence He endowed with a moral sense which man 
is compelled to recognise as the supreme law of his 
being. Each of these elements of his nature claims 
to be the sole guide of his action. And these contra¬ 
dictory claims reveal in man two widely different and 
mutually antagonistic influences, viz. the needs and 
desires of the body claiming loudly to be supplied and 
gratified, and the moral sense claiming, with an authority 
which the intelligence of man is compelled to recognise 
as supreme, to control and direct his entire activity. 
These contending influences make human life a conflict; 
and make it also a test of man’s loyalty to that in him 
which he knows to be most worthy to rule. Between 
these contending influences he is compelled to choose 


37 


3« 


THE RUIN 


[Part I 


day by day and hour by hour. And each choice reveals 
and moulds his character. Thus is human life on earth, 
in consequence of the constitution of human nature, a 
moral probation. 

The first recorded moral act of the first man was self¬ 
surrender to a bodily appetite and disobedience to an 
express command of God. Man thus fell under the 
condemnation of God and under the doom of death, the 
threatened penalty of disobedience. Another element 
of the same penalty was moral bondage. By the first 
act of disobedience Adam must have lost his moral 
balance; and the balance thus lost he was unable to 
regain. In this way man fell helplessly and hopelessly 
under the dominion of the lower side of his nature ; 
and became utterly unable to win back the favour of 
God. 

Inasmuch as all life known to us to-day is inherited 
from earlier life, the derived life inheriting in many 
cases even acquired characteristics, we are not surprised 
to find that the sin of the first man and its moral and 
bodily consequences to himself influenced greatly his 
descendants. We have learnt from Paul and others 
that the doom of death pronounced on Adam has passed 
down to all men. And from this inherited penalty we 
have inferred with confidence that the universal moral 
bondage of men, which cannot have been a part of the 
original purpose of creation, must also be a result of 
the same first transgression. If so, the mortality, and 
the tendency to evil present in all men to-day, are an 
extension or multiplication, handed down from father 



Lect. VI] 


MAN UNSAVED 


39 


to son, of that first mortality and moral bondage under 
which Adam fell. 

We may therefore describe the state of man, apart 
from the salvation announced by Christ, as one of 
utter moral inability so to obey God as by obedience to 
obtain His favour, so to realise his own moral ideal as 
to find in that realisation moral rest. 

This teaching of the Bible is in complete harmony 
with the facts of human nature as we see them around 
us to-day and read them in history, and with the 
testimony of the moral sense of man as it speaks in 
the literature of the world and in the heart of man. 
We all know by direct experience that we can do right 
only by strenuous resistance to hostile influences, and 
that apart from supernatural help our own resistance is 
vain. The annals of crime contain abundant evidence 
that sinners are victims of their own sins. 

The above teaching does not imply that in those who 
have never heard the Gospel, or even in those who have 
rejected it, there is nothing good. For abundant evidence 
attests that the moral sense remains, distorted and 
weakened but not silent, in very many, probably in all, 
who daily break the moral law. In the terrible picture 
of his former state given in Rom. vii. 14-25 (see my 
Commentary) Paul declares that he agrees with the Law 
that it is good, that he desires to do the good and hates 
the sin which he commits, but that he is led captive by 
an irresistible power within. Similar testimony has 
been given in all ages. The moral sense, however, good 
as it is, is nevertheless unable to rescue man from the 



40 


THE RUIN 


[Part I 


power of sin. It does but reveal his bondage, and 
extort a cry for deliverance. 

The actual condition of man apart from the direct 
influence of the Gospel is also affected by another 
element as wide as the race. In Rom. ii. 4 Paul blames 
a man, whom he describes as hard-hearted and im¬ 
penitent and as treasuring up for himself anger in a 
day of anger, for not knowing that God is leading 
him to repentance. This implies that on all men 
God is exerting this influence. For, if there were any 
exceptions, the man in question might be one. In 
the case supposed by Paul, this good influence was 
manifestly unavailing. But it left the man without 
excuse. Our Lord teaches in John vi. 44, 65 that 
apart from such divine influences none can come to 
Him. 

Doubtless the inborn moral sense is a chief instru¬ 
ment by which God draws men towards repentance and 
Christ. If so, the moral sense of man is an essential 
part of God’s purpose of salvation in Christ. In other 
words, the Fall left in man, by the mercy of God, 
injured but not destroyed, an element of which God 
thought fit to make use for his restoration. It is a 
source in all men of divine influences leading towards 
salvation. And, although some men seem to trample 
under foot these influences, we may yet hope that in 
none they are altogether without good moral result, 
and that in many who do not fully yield to them they 
are yet an upward moral force raising more or less 
the moral life. To this source we may attribute much 




Lkct. VIJ 


MAN UNSAVED 


V 


in the ancient heathen world which evokes our sincere 
admiration. 

This element of moral good in the heathen is referred 
to in Rom. ii. 14, “whenever Gentiles, the men who 
have no law, do by nature (Quaei as in Eph. ii. 3) the 
things of the Law;” and in Rom. ii. 26, 27, “if the 
Uncircumcision keep the decrees of the Law, shall not 
his uncircumcision be reckoned for circumcision? and 
the Uncircumcision which is from nature (e* (pvae a><?), 
fulfilling the Law, shall judge thee who with letter 
and circumcision art a transgressor of law.” Here we 
have a condition derived “ from nature,” i.e. inherited 
by birth, and men who “by nature,” i.e. guided only 
by forces born in them, do the things prescribed 
in the Law. The language used here suggests or 
implies not only possible but actual cases. But we 
need not assume that this obedience is more than 
fragmentary, or that it was sufficient to win the favour 
of God. For it must be interpreted in the light of 
Rom. viii. 8, “ they that are in flesh cannot please God.” 
It is, however, sufficient to condemn a disobedient and 
impenitent Jew. As we have already seen, the “nature” 
inherited by each man at birth includes the moral sense, 
which God uses as an instrument to draw all men to 
repentance for the sins of which all are guilty. In this 
sense some who are u by nature children of anger,” i.e. 
who guided by the lower element received at birth do 
actions which bring them under the anger of God, are 
here said to do “ by nature,” i.e. guided by their inborn 
moral sense, some things which the Law prescribes. 



42 


THE RUIN 


[Part I 


Of these two elements in the a nature ” of man, if the 
lower were controlled by the higher, as was manifestly 
the Creators purpose, all would be well. But the clear 
teaching of the New Testament that all men are or 
have been slaves of sin implies that, apart from a special 
deliverance wrought by God, the higher is held down 
by the lower. In other words, there has been a moral 
displacement which even the moral influences born in 
man cannot restore. The Moral Sense is at first only 
a voice crying in the wilderness. But it is the voice of 
God, and a herald of divine deliverance. 

Where the Gospel is preached, and in proportion as 
it is preached fully, the inborn moral sense leads men 
towards Christ. For, as an authoritative moral standard, 
it reveals to them their sin, and by prompting efforts 
after amendment makes them conscious of their moral 
helplessness and of their need of a Saviour. Thus, like 
the Law of Moses, the Law written within is a guardian- 
slave leading to Christ. 

Inasmuch as this divine influence is an essential link 
in the chain of salvation wrought out for us in Christ, 
it is a result of the death of Christ upon the cross. For 
through His death was removed (Through Christ to God , 
Lect. XVIII.) a barrier to salvation having its root in 
the justice of God. Its universality, inferred above 
from Rom. ii. 4, therefore confirms abundant teaching 
in the New Testament that Christ died for all men. 

The above double picture of man, as fallen yet not 
without a witness for God even in his fallen nature, 
embraces all the known facts of the case. The terrible 



Ucr. VI] 


MAN UNSAVED 


43 


prevalence of sin, and a wide experience that men can 
do right only by personal victory over a deeply im¬ 
planted tendency to evil, are explained by the teaching 
that all men inherit a nature prone to sin. And this 
evil inheritance is in part harmonised with the goodness 
and power of the Creator by being shewn to be a result 
of Adam’s sin ; and, as we shall see, by the teaching 
that in Christ we are made sharers of a new life of 
victory over sin. On the other hand, all moral excel¬ 
lence in man, even in those men not directly an J 
consciously saved by the Gospel of Christ, is explained 
by the inborn moral sense and by divine influences 
leading men back towards the path marked out for 
them by God. 

The above results indicate clearly the salvation needed 
by man. He needs first pardon for past sins and 
restoration to the favour of God forfeited by these sins. 
But, since God smiles only on those who obey His 
commands, which the unsaved are unable to do, we 
need also deliverance from moral bondage, from the 
mighty hostile powers leading us astray. And, inas¬ 
much as bodily death is a result of Adam’s sin, this 
rescue will not be absolutely complete till the body 
laid dead in the grave is raised to life in the presence 
of God. This full salvation is the object of our further 
research. 

In a practical work like the present, it is needless to 
discuss the nature and the origin of Sin. Indeed it may 
be questioned whether in a phenomenon so abnormal 



44 


THE RUIN 


[Part I 


and unnatural as sin there is anything which can be 
called its nature. At the same time there are in con¬ 
nection with sin associations and sequences which are 
worthy of careful research. But such research is beyond 
the scope of this volume. 

The idea conveyed by the word sin, in the Bible and 
in modern thought, is sufficiently definite for our pur¬ 
pose. All humafi literature and thought bear witness 
that around human action certain limits are drawn, not 
by a mechanical necessity, but by an obligation which 
every one is compelled to recognise as the supreme law 
of his being. To cross those limits in action, is actual 
sin ; and is at once followed by the inward phenomenon 
of guilt. To purpose, or even to desire, to cross those 
limits in any direction, is sinful thought and purpose ; 
producing, even if it do not pass into action, a felt 
inward defilement. 

In many cases, possibly in all cases indirectly, the 
transgression of these limits may be traced to the needs, 
desires, and aversions of the bodily life claiming to be 
supplied and gratified; i.e. to man’s free self-surrender 
to that lower side of his nature which is akin to animals, 
in spite of the prohibition of that nobler element of his 
nature which he knows to be worthiest to rule and 
which is akin to One higher than man. It is a revolt 
of that in man which is manifestly designed to obey 
against that which is manifestly designed to rule. 

The moral sense of man ever points to a superhuman 
Source, to an intelligent and righteous Creator and Ruler 
of man and of the universe, who through the moral 



Lect. VI] 


MAN UNSAVED 


45 


sense claims to direct and control the entire activity 
of man. We shall learn that this supreme Ruler 
claims, in Christ, the unreserved devotion of His intelli¬ 
gent creatures. Sin is the rejection of this rule and 
claim. 

The origin of sin lies hidden in the^mystcry of created 
personality. The Creator gave to man a capacity to 
select his own line of action, to initiate actions for which 
ultimately he is alone responsible. About this freedom 
of the will, more will be said in Lect. XXIX. Sin is an 
abuse of this great gift: and all such abuse is sin. 

For our further research, it will be sufficient to note 
that the Bible frequently asserts or assumes that all men 
have, as the heart of each one testifies, transgressed 
limits marked out by an authority which none can 
question ; that this transgression has overthrown man’s 
moral balance, and has left him, with whatever in him is 
highest and best, a helpless captive held down by that 
lower element which his higher nature was designed to 
rule. From this bondage, we now seek deliverance. 



PART II 

THE RESTORATION 


LECTURE VII 

REPENTANCE , FAITH, JUSTIFICATION 
HE rescue of man from the various consequences 



X of his past sins, we shall in PART IV. trace to an 
eternal purpose of God to save man whom He foresaw in 
sin and ruin, and to the eternal love of which that 
purpose is an eternal outflow. The working out of this 
purpose may be traced in the call of Abraham, in God’s 
covenant with him and with his descendants, in the 
giving of the Law through Moses, in God’s dealings 
with the Sacred Nation throughout its chequered history; 
and still more conspicuously in the birth and teaching 
and death and resurrection of Christ, and in the founding 
and protection and growth of the Church. This accom¬ 
plishment of the purpose of salvation reaches each 
individual, as we have seen on p. 40, in divine influ¬ 
ences leading, or tending to lead, him to repentance. 
Through the moral law written on the hearts of all men, 



Lect. VII] REPENTANCE , FAITH , JUSTIFICATION 


47 


God exerts an influence prompting them to walk along 
the path thus marked out. In the Jew, this influence 
would prompt to obey, not only the moral law, but the 
various special commands given by God to Israel. In 
those who have heard the Gospel and have accepted the 
unique claims of Christ, these influences prompt obedi¬ 
ence to Him and devotion to the great purpose for 
which the Eternal Son assumed human form. We have 
thus man held fast by sin, but an object of influences 
which, if yielded to, will make him free. 

The actual salvation of each one begins when he 
surrenders himself to these divine influences; and pro¬ 
gresses in proportion to the constancy and completeness 
of this surrender, i.e. in proportion as he embraces and 
makes his own God’s purpose that men forsake sin and 
serve Christ. This change of purpose (see Through 
Christ to God , Lect. XIV.) is REPENTANCE. It is 
prompted by dissatisfaction with the former life of sin, 
or in other words by sorrow for sin ; and prompts an 
earnest effort to walk in future along the path marked 
out by the Moral Sense. 

To man thus repentant, Christ announces pardon for 
all past sin; or rather announces pardon for all who 
believe His words. And, as we saw in the lecture just 
quoted, none can believe this promise of pardon except 
those who are resolved to abandon all sin. This gracious 
promise, supported as it is by the infinite love of God 
manifested in the death of Christ for man’s sin and by 
the power manifested in His resurrection from the 
dead, the repentant sinner ventures to believe. He 
5 



48 


THE RESTORATION 


[Part II 


thus enters the number of those whom God accepts 
as righteous. And the Gospel promise of forgiveness 
for all who believe assures him, conscious of his own 
faith, that he is himself forgiven. Thus in the Gospel 
of Christ, speaking to Him from His cross and from 
His empty grave, and received by faith, the penitent 
sinner obtains, and becomes conscious of, his own for¬ 
giveness. By FAITH he is JUSTIFIED. 

Forgiveness, however, does not remove all the con¬ 
sequences of past sin. The drunkard’s repentance does 
not restore the health and fortune squandered by intem¬ 
perance. Nor does it destroy the passion for drink 
which has so often led him astray. It has brought him 
into the favour of God. But, unless in the future he 
conquers the sins which hitherto have held him in 
bondage, he cannot retain the favour so graciously 
given. 

The sinner has, nevertheless, gained much : and what 
he has gained is a sure pledge that all else needed will 
follow. In former times, he was at war with God ; and 
had to reckon with Him as, in a real and terrible sense, 
his righteous and all-powerful foe. But now he has 
been reconciled to God. Moreover, the infinite cost, to 
God, of this reconciliation, reveals the infinite earnest¬ 
ness of God’s purpose to save and to bless him. That 
earnestness assures us that, whatever is needful to 
complete the work already begun, God will do. For, 
otherwise, the work already done will be in vain, and 
the price paid for it wasted. We cannot doubt that 
“ He who has begun a good work will complete it” We 



Lect. VII] REPENTANCE , FAITH , JUSTIFICATION 


49 


therefore look forward with confidence to the eternal 
gloty which God has promised. And the prospect fills 
us, even amid the hardships of life, with exultant joy : 
" we exult in hope of the glory of God.” This hope and 
joy (Rom. v. 2) are immediate results of justification 
through faith and through the death of Christ 



LECTURE VIII 


ADOPTION 


E come now to consider the teaching of the 



New Testament, and especially of Paul, about 


the work of God in man following justification. In 
order to be effectual, this work must, as already seen, 
include deliverance from all inward bondage to sin: 
and, for the accomplishment of God’s creative purpose, 
it must also include restoration of man’s normal relation 
to God. 

In the earlier volume we found, with the Father in 
eternity yet personally distinct from Him, one who 
claims, as expressing a relation to God of unique 
dignity, the title Son of God. In Rom. viii. 29 Paul 
teaches that God predestined His chosen ones “ to be 
conformed to the image of His Son,” with the ultimate 
purpose that He may be “ firstborn among many 
brethren.” In other words, before the world was, God 
resolved to surround His eternal Son with later-born 
sons who should be sharers of His likeness. Thus will 
the Only-begotten become the Firstborn. 

The accomplishment of this eternal purpose has 
already begun. In Job 16 and again in ch. xxxviii. 7 


Lect. VIII] 


ADOPTION 


5* 


we read of “ sons of God : ” and it is difficult to inter¬ 
pret this phrase otherwise than of supernatural, in¬ 
telligent, and holy beings. As possessing a nature 
like that of God and derived from God, these may 
appropriately be described as His sons. Here then we 
have created sons of God. 

In Exodus iv. 22, 23 God bids Moses say to Pharaoh 
“ Israel is My son, My firstborn ... let My son go 
that he may serve Me.” A nation is here spoken of 
as holding a peculiar relation to God which may be 
described as sonship. Similarly, in 2 Sam. vii. 14 God 
says, touching David’s son, “ I will be to him for a 
father, and he shall be to Me for a son.” Here the 
dignity given, under the oppression in Egypt, to the 
whole nation is summed up in the theocratic king who 
was to occupy a unique relation to God as His Son. 
A further development, we note in Hosea i. 10, where 
the prophet announces that in days to come “in the 
place where it is said to them, * no people of Mine 
are ye/ it shall be said to them, ‘ye are sons of the 
living God.’” This ancient prophecy, Paul quotes in 
Rom. ix. 26 as fulfilled in those who have obtained 
the righteousness which is through faith. 

To the Christians in Galatia, imperfect as they were, 
after teaching in Gal. ii. 16, iii. 8 that through faith a 
man is justified, Paul writes in ch. iii. 26, “ye are all 
sons of God through faith, in Christ Jesus.” This 
assertion, especially the concluding words, he supports 
by adding, “for so many of you as were baptized for 
Christ have put on Christ.” Evidently he means that 



52 


THE RESTORATION 


[Part II 


they who have believed and been baptized have, in some 
real sense, assumed Christ’s relation to God, and are 
therefore, like Him, sons of God. This teaching is 
further expounded in ch. iv. 6, 7, where we read, 
“ because ye are sons, God sent forth the Spirit of His 
Son into your hearts crying ‘ Abba, Father.’ So then 
thou art no longer a servant, but a son.” 

Similar teaching meets us in the closely-related 
Epistle to the Romans. In Rom. viii. 14 we read, 
“ so many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are 
sons of God.” So vv. 15, 16 : “ in whom we cry, ‘ Abba, 
Father.’ The Spirit Itself bears witness with our 
spirit that we are children of God.” \n v. 19 we read 
of “ the revelation of the sons of God ; ” and in v. 21 
of “the glory of the children of God.” Similarly in 
ch. ix. 8, “ not the children of the flesh, not these are 
children of God.” In Phil. ii. 15 Paul desires that his 
readers may be “ spotless children of God, in the midst 
of a crooked and perverse generation among whom ye 
appear as lights in the world.” 

Similar teaching, from an altogether independent 
source, but in close harmony with Gal. iii. 26, meets 
us in John i. 12 : “so many as received Him, He gave 
to them authority to become children of God, to those 
who believe in His name.” Also, from the same writer, 
in 1 John iii. 1 : “see what kind of love the Father has 
given to us, in order that we may be called children 
of God; and such we are.” Again, in vv. 9, 10 : 
“ everyone that is born from God does no sin . . . and 
he cannot sin, because he is begotten from God. In 



Lect. VIII] 


ADOPTION 


53 


this are manifest the children of God and the children 
of the devil.” Teaching very similar to this last is 
traced to the lips of Christ in John viii. 43, where to 
men who claimed to have “ one Father, even God,” 
our Lord replies, “ if God were your Father ye would 
love Me ... ye are from your father the devil, and 
the works of your father ye wish to do.” In Matt. v. 9, 
in the Sermon on the Mount, we read “ blessed are the 
peace-makers : for they shall be called sons of God.” 
And again in w. 44, 45, “love your enemies ... in 
order that ye may become sons of your Father in 
heaven.” In Luke xx. 36 Christ says that “they who 
have been counted worthy to obtain the resurrection 
from the dead . . . cannot die any more: for they 
are equal to angels and are sons of God, being sons of 
the resurrection.” 

From the above it appears that Paul and John agree 
to teach that they who believe the Gospel of Christ 
thereby become sons of God ; and that similar teaching 
is in three Gospels attributed to Christ. 

This teaching receives in the Epistles of Paul, where 
it occupies a larger place than elsewhere in the New 
Testament, a peculiar form. In Gal. iv. 6 he states that 
“ God sent forth His Son ... in order to redeem those 
under law ” with the ultimate purpose “ that we may 
obtain the adoption? Similarly in Rom. viii. 15: “ ye 
have received a Spirit of adoption "; and in a later 
group of Epistles, in Eph. i. 5, “ having predestined us 
for adoption through Jesus Christ.” The uncommon 
Greek word here used is an equivalent to the Latin 




54 


THE RESTORATION 


[Part II 


word adoptio , the ordinary term for a Roman legal 
process by which one man took another’s son to be his 
own son. This process sundered, with certain limi¬ 
tations, all legal relations, between the adopted son and 
his natural father, and created a new relation which in 
the eye of the law was, with the above limitations, the 
same as that of a born son to his own father. The 
adopted son took the name and rank, and became heir 
to, the adopting father. “ The person adopting became 
the lawful father of one who was not his natural child, 
but, who thereupon became his lawful son or daughter, 
and a member of his family : ” Smith’s Dictionary of 
Greek and Roman Antiquities , art Adoptio , Third 
Edition. 

This term, Paul the Roman citizen, and of the writers 
of the New Testament he only, uses to describe the 
changed relation to God of the justified. It suggests 
that the change is as great as when a child of a poor 
man, or, as was sometimes the case, of a slave, was 
received into a rich man’s family to be henceforth his 
son. The adopted one might be a little child. How 
vast to him the significance of the legal process about 
which he knew nothing ! There awaits him now, not 
the hardship and degradation of slavery, but wealth and 
luxury. By using this term, Paul teaches that they 
who were once slaves of sin have been received into the 
family of God as His children. 

The same word is used in Rom. viii. 23 as an equivalent 
to “ the redemption of the body,” i.e. its rescue from the 
grave. This use is easily explained. For the outward 



Lect. VIII] 


ADOPTION 


55 


and visible reception of the adopted sons is still future. 
At present their real position is veiled. But even the 
material world is waiting (Rom. viii. 19) for “ the un¬ 
veiling of the sons of God.” They will, on the resur¬ 
rection morning, be welcomed in splendour to the home 
of their adopting Father in heaven. This will be “ the 
glory of the children of God.” The word is used again 
in Rom. ix. 4 to describe the first of the many privileges 
of ancient Israel whose misuse Paul so sadly deplores. 
This is in close harmony with Exodus iv. 22, already 
quoted, “ Israel is My firstborn son.” Of all the nations 
of the world, God took Israel to stand in a special filial 
relation to Himself. 

The use of this legal term, and by Paul only, is a 
remarkable coincidence with the use by him only of the 
legal term justification to describe the pardon of sins, 
and with the teaching by him only that the death of 
Christ stands in special relation to the justice and the 
Law of God. So familiar to Paul’s thought was the 
idea of law that even the Gospel of Christ assumes with 
him a legal dress. 

In close harmony with the teaching expounded above, 
the adopted sons are spoken of as heirs. So Gal. iii. 29, 
“ if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, heirs 
according to promise; ” and ch. iv. 7, “ if a son, also an 
heir through God.” Also Rom. viii. 17, “if children, 
also heirs ; heirs of God, and joint-heirs of Christ.” This 
last passage asserts that we are sharers with Christ, not 
only in His relation to God as Son, but also in the 
infinite blessings which are His in virtue of that relation- 



S<5 


THE RESTORATION 


[Part II 


ship. The same idea is expressed by the cognate word 
inheritance in Eph. i. 14, 18, v. 5, Col. iii. 24. Notice 
also Titus iii. 7, “in order that, justified by His grace, 
we may become heirs according to the hope of eternal 
life ; ” and Acts xx. 32, in an address of Paul, “ to give 
to you an inheritance among all that are sanctified.” 

That believers in Christ are “ sons ” whom Pie “ is not 
ashamed to call brethren,” is taught in Heb. ii. 10-12 : 
so ch. xii. 7, 8. As Son of God, Christ is “ made heir of 
all things : ” ch. i. 2. And in ch. i. 14 we read of “ those 
who will inherit salvation.” The same or cognate words, 
in the same connection of thought, are found in Heb. 
vi. 17, ix. 15, xi. 7, 8 ; and in 1 Peter i. 4, “ begotten us 
again for an inheritance also in James ii. 5, “ heirs of 
the kingdom which He has promised to those that love 
Him.” This use of the word recalls its use in the Lxx. 
as a constant equivalent of a Hebrew word describing 
the covenant with God and the blessings involved therein 
which passed down from Abraham to his descendants. 
So Gen. xv. 3, 4, 8 ; Deut. iv. 1, 5, 14, 22, 26, 38, 47. 

Thus various writers of the New Testament assert, in 
somewhat different forms, that they who believe the 
Gospel of Christ are not only accepted by God as 
righteous, in spite of their past sins, but are received 
into His family as His sons and as sharing, or some day 
to share, with the eternal Son, in virtue of their new 
relation to God, all the wealth of God. As a conspicuous 
element common to several types of teaching in the New 
Testament, we may accept this with perfect confidence 
as actually taught by Christ 



Lect. VIII] 


ADOPTION 


57 


In all these passages, from various writers, we have 
not an original, but an acquired, sonship. They who 
are sons of God “ by faith ” were not, in the same sense, 
His sons before they believed. Adopted sons could not 
be sons by birth. For no Roman adopted his own 
son. They to whom God gave “ authority to become 
children of God ” manifestly were not such before they 
received Christ. The contrast between “ the children of 
God and the children of the devil ” proves that in the 
writer’s thought not all men are children of God. From 
all this it is evident that the writers of the New Testa¬ 
ment did not look upon men as sons of God in virtue of 
their original derivation from Him ; that, as used by 
them, the term “ sons of God ” denotes a new relation 
acquired by personal faith. 

On the other hand, in the address at Athens recorded 
in Acts xvii. 28, Paul quotes with approval a poet who 
claims for men divine origin : “ His offspring we are.” 
The word offspring is a general term used also for 
animals, noting mere derivation of life, rational or 
irrational. It is worthy of note that in v. 29, which is 
a comment on this quotation, Paul is satisfied with the 
same term to describe the common relation of all men 
to God. Instead of using his own familiar phrase, sons 
or children of God, he says merely “ being then an off¬ 
spring of God.” Had it stood alone, this choice of 
words would have had no significance. But, taken in 
connection with the teaching quoted above, it reminds 
us that Paul never speaks of all men as sons of God, but 
habitually uses language which excludes this idea. 



58 


THE RESTORATION 


[Part II 


A conspicuous and beautiful exception, and in the 
New Testament the only exception, to this usage is 
found in Luke xv. n, 24, where, even in the far country, 
the prodigal remembers his father, and returning is 
recognised as his son : “ this my son was dead,” etc. It 
is always unsafe to build theology on parable or metaphor. 
But this parable presents what we at once feel to be 
another real side of the sinner’s relation to God. Among 
all visible creatures of God man occupies a unique place 
as in a special sense an offspring of God sharing His 
intelligent and moral nature. This unique relation and 
similarity to God is conspicuous in Gen. i. 26-28, “ let 
us make man in Our image, after Our likeness . . . and 
God created man in His own image, in the image 
of God created He him and in ch. ii. 7, “and Jehovah 
God formed man, dust from the ground, and breathed 
into his nostrils the breath of life.” And the Bible 
bears abundant witness that the whole human race, thus 
closely related to God, is an object of His tender paternal 
love. In this correct sense, even beyond the limits of 
the historic revelations recorded in the Bible, men have 
looked* up to the Creator of the universe as the loving 
Father of all men. 

To this conception of our relation to God, we have an 
easy and remarkable transition, from the different points 
of view of Paul and John, in Matt. v. 45, where Christ 
speaks to His disciples ( v . 1) about God as their Father 
in heaven, and says that by imitating Him they may 
become His sons. Similarly in chs. v. 16, vi. I, 4, 6, 9, 
14, 15, 18, 26, 32, vii. 11, x. 29, Mark xi. 25, Luke vi. 36, 



Lect. VIII] 


ADOPTION 


59 


xi. 13, xii. 30, 32. But we cannot fairly infer from these 
passages that God is Father of all men : for Christ is 
speaking to His disciples. Yet, when we remember 
that all men spring from God and share His nature, as 
the lower animals do not, and are objects of His special 
love, it is easy to extend to the whole race the relation 
expressed in the words “ our Father in heaven.” On 
the other hand, this language does nothing to weaken 
the remarkable reservation by Paul and John of the terms 
sons and children oj God to those who believe in Christ. 

This reservation, obscuring as at first sight it does the 
great truth of the universal fatherhood of God, demands 
explanation. This is to be found in the solemn truth 
that by sin all men have lost the rights of sonship 
involved in their original derivation from God. Just so, 
we may conceive a king’s son who had rebelled against 
his father to lose the right of inheritance and to be 
treated as an ordinary rebel. The completeness of this 
loss could not be more forcefully expressed than it is 
by the language which describes the sinner’s re-entrance 
by adoption into the family of God. To that family he 
now comes as an alien and is received into it, not by 
right of birth, but by a familiar legal process by which 
even the child of a slave might become a member of 
his master’s family. And we cannot doubt that it was 
in order to put in the clearest light the utter loss by sin 
of man’s original privileges as a son of God that Paul 
and John ignored altogether that original relationship 
and used the language quoted above. 

It is now evident that the believer’s adoption into the 



6o 


THE RESTORATION 


[Part II 


family of God differs from Roman adoption in that it 
is a restoration to an original and glorious relation. 
This original relation gives to the newly acquired 
relation its real significance and worth. Roman adop¬ 
tion was only a legal fiction. A man might teach an 
adopted son to call him father ; but for all that he was 
no father and the child no son of his. But when the 
adopted sons of God call Him Father, their cry is 
no fiction but profound truth. For originally, in a sense 
deeper than any mere human relationship, they sprang 
from God. As derived from Him, sharing His nature, 
yet personally distinct from Him, they are His children. 
All that Adoption has done is to restore a relation 
broken by sin. 

Such is, as taught by Paul and in part by John, the 
next step after justification in the way of salvation. In 
human courts, when a man is charged with a crime and 
after due investigation acquitted, he simply goes away, 
perhaps to starve. But those who have been found 
guilty of rebellion against God, and have been pardoned 
“ through the redemption in Christ Jesus,” are at once 
received into the family of God with all the rights of 
sons. 

Adoption is by faith and for all that believe. So 
Gal. iii. 26, 27, “ ye are all sons of God through faith, 
in Christ Jesus : for so many as have been baptised into 
Christ have put on Christ; ” and John i. 12, “as many 
as received Him, He gave to them authority to become 
children of God, even to them that believe in His name/' 
Similarly, though in a somewhat different form to be 



Lect. VIII] 


ADOPTION 


61 


expounded in Lect. XI., in I John v. i, “everyone that 
believes that Jesus is the Son of God is begotten from 
God.” Consequently, as each obtained by faith in 
Christ, justification and adoption go together. But they 
are distinct objects of thought and faith. By the one 
we pass from under the frown and condemnation of 
God ; by the other we enter His family 

The teaching just expounded is of the utmost practical 
importance. Thousands of men and women, to-day, 
amid the pressing cares and the disappointment! of life 
look back with vain regret to the bygone days of child¬ 
hood with its freedom from care and its bright hopes. 
These joys of childhood, but in richer measure, the 
teaching of this lecture gives us back again. For the 
children of God, touching all that is good in childhood, 
are children still. The fathers in whom once they 
trusted lie dead in the grave. Yet they are not orphans. 
For they live in the presence and smile of a Father in 
heaven who is infinitely better able to help them than 
was the father they have lost; and in His protection and 
love they find refuge from every storm and a solace in 
every sorrow. The day dreams of their past childhood 
have been dispelled by the rude actualities of mature 
life. But the roughness of their journey is cheered, and 
its darkest steps are brightened, by the prospect of 
an eternal manhood in which the loftiest hopes ever 
cherished will be surpassed by an infinite and glorious 
realisation. The prospect of that inheritance has given 
to them unfading youth. 

As yet, however, we have found no actual inward 





62 


THE RESTORATION 


[Part II 


change, no rescue from the power and bondage of sin. 
But, of this deliverance, both justification and adoption 
are sure pledges. For without loyalty and love sonship 
is an empty name : and love to God is incompatible 
with sin. Moreover the infinite cost involved in the 
mission of the eternal Son to save His lost brethren 
assures us that God will do all that is needful to make 
their adoption into His family a glorious and complete 
reality. How this deliverance will be wrought out, we 
wait to learn. 




LECTURE IX 


THE SPIRIT OF ADOPTION 

I N Gal. iv. 5 Paul asserts that the ultimate purpose 
for which God sent forth His Son to buy off those 
under law is “that we may obtain the adoption.” In 
his readers in Galatia this purpose was attained. For 
in ch. iii. 26 the Apostle writes, “ ye are all sons of God 
through faith, in Christ Jesus.” In ch. iv. 6 he goes on 
to say that, because this purpose is attained and his 
readers are already sons, God, who sent forth His Son, 
has sent forth also “ the Spirit of His Son ” into their 
hearts; and that the Spirit thus sent cries “ Abba, 
Father.” From this he at once infers, “ so then thou 
art no longer a servant but a son.” This new cry, 
prompted by the Spirit of the Son sent by the Father 
into the hearts of His adopted sons, reveals an inward 
change in them corresponding to the relative change 
involved in their adoption. And the mission of the 
Spirit into their hearts affords proof of the change 
wrought in them by the mission of the Son of God into 
the world. 

The Spirit thus given is designed to be a Guide in 
life leading us in a direction opposite to that prompted 

6 63 


6 4 


THE RESTORATION 


[Part II 


by the needs and desires of the body. So Gal. v. 16, 17 : 
“walk by the Spirit and ye will not accomplish the 
desires of the flesh; for the flesh desires against the 
Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh, in order that, 
whatever things ye wish, these ye may not do.” The 
Spirit is also represented in v. 22 as a living seed 
bearing the manifold and beautiful fruit of all human 
excellence. In ch. iii. 2, 3, the Spirit obtained by faith 
is appealed to in argument as a conspicuous feature of 
the new life in Christ. 

In Rom. viii. 2, Paul joyfully declares that the law 
of the Spirit of life has made those in Christ Jesus 
free from the law of sin and death. His whole argu¬ 
ment implies that the word spirit has the same reference 
throughout vv. 2-16; and if so it denotes throughout, 
as in v. 9, the Spirit of God. Evidently Paul means, 
in v. 2, that the Holy Spirit, by working out His own 
will in the justified as a rule of life, has broken the 
bondage to sin and death described in ch. vii. 14-25. 
They in whom is fulfilled the purpose for which ( v . 3) 
God sent His Son “walk ( v . 4) not according to flesh 
but according to Spirit.” In other words, their steps 
in life are in harmony with the will of the Spirit of 
God. They are ( v . 14) “led by the Spiritand (v. 13) 
by His influence are destroying the power of their 
bodily life. In close agreement with Gal. iv. 6, this 
guiding Spirit is called in Rom. viii. 15, 16 a “Spirit 
of Adoption,” is said to move those in whom He dwells 
to “ cry Abba, Father,” and “ bears witness that they 
are children of God.” This teaching suggests or implies 




Lect. IX] 


THE SPIRIT OF ADOPTION 


65 


that the gift of the Spirit follows immediately, and 
consummates, and testifies to, adoption. 

Throughout the Epistles of Paul, the gift of the 
Spirit is a conspicuous clement of the new life in Christ. 
So 2 Cor. i. 22, “ who sealed us, and gave the earnest 
of the Spirit in our hearts;” Eph. i. 13, 14, “in whom, 
having believed, ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit 
of promise, who is an earnest of our inheritance; ” 
ch. iv. 30, “the Holy Spirit, in which ye were sealed 
for the day of redemption.” 

Very conspicuous in the Fourth Gospel is the promise 
of the Spirit given by Christ to His disciples on the 
night of His betrayal. He then spoke of “another 
Helper, the Spirit of the Truth,” whom He would send 
from the Father and who would teach the disciples all 
things, would bring to their memory the words of Christ 
and guide them in, or into, all the truth, and who would 
abide with them forever: John xiv. 16, 17, 26, xv. 26, 
xvi. 13, 14. John the Baptist announced, as recorded in 
Matt. iii. 11, that Christ would “baptize with the Holy 
Spirit.” And Christ promised (Matt. x. 20) that, when 
His disciples were for His sake brought before judges, 
the Spi.it of God would speak in them. All this leaves 
no room for doubt that Christ taught that, to those who 
should believe His words, He would give the Holy 
Spirit to be in them the animating principle and the 
guide and strength of a new life. This we may accept 
as an assured result of our examination of the Christian 
documents. 

The meaning of the evidently equivalent phrases the 



66 


THE RESTORATION 


[Part II 


Spirit of God t the Spirit of His Son, the Holy Spirit now 
demands attention. The word spirit suggests or implies 
an invisible and life-giving principle moving men from 
within, as man’s own spirit gives life to, and moves, his 
body. This suggestion is supported by a comparison 
in i Cor. ii. 11 : “ who of men knows the things of the 
man except the spirit of the man which is in him ? So 
also the things of God no one knows except the Spirit 
of God.” And in Rom. viii. 16 the Spirit of God and 
the spirit of man are placed in close relation as together 
bearing witness that those led by the Spirit are sons 
of God. The distinctive term Spirit of God suggests 
that this last is as much above our spirit as is God 
above man. 

The same or a similar phrase is already familiar to 
us in the Old Testament. Of Samson we read in 
Judges xiii. 25, “ the Spirit of Jehovah began to move 
him at times in the camp of Dan ; ” and in ch. xiv. 5, 6, 
“ a young lion roared against him. And the Spirit of 
Jehovah lighted upon him, and he rent it as he would 
have rent a kid.” Here we have manifestly an inward 
divine influence arming Samson with superhuman 
power. Similarly, Exodus xxxi. 2, 3 : " I have called 
Bezaleel and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, 
in wisdom and in understanding and in knowledge and 
in all work, to devise devices, to work in gold and in 
silver and in brass.” Here the Spirit of God gave to 
the artist skill to design and erect the Tabernacle. A 
still more important inspiration is mentioned in 2 Sam. 
xxiii. i, 2 : “ The sweet psalmist of Israel said, the 




Lect. IX] 


THE SPIRIT OF ADOPTION 


67 


Spirit of Jehovah spoke in me and His word was upon 
my tongue.” Similarly, Ezek. ii. i, 2 : “ And He said 
to me, son of man, stand upon thy feet, and I will speak 
to thee. And there entered into me a Spirit when He 
spoke to me; and He set me upon my feet, and I heard 
Him that spoke to me.” In the New Testament, the 
voice of the prophets is frequently traced to the Spirit 
of God. So Acts xxviii. 25, “ Well spoke the Holy 
Spirit through Isaiah the prophet;” 1 Peter i. 11, 
“ searching what or what manner of season the Spirit 
of Christ which was in them did signify.” In this 
last passage, the prophets are represented as themselves 
conscious of a higher inspiration and as seeking for 
its meaning. And in all these places the Spirit of 
God is evidently a divine influence, or a divine source 
of such influence, moving men from within and giving 
to them supernatural power, skill, and intelligence, and 
thus making them to be the arm, hand, an4 voice, of 
God. 

In the New Testament, the Spirit bears a new name. 
He is the “ Spirit of Christ ” and “ of the Son of God.” 
Now in the incarnate Son we must conceive (see Lect. 
XXXIII.) a created sinless human spirit and the spiritual 
personality of the eternal Son of God. But neither of 
these can be the meaning of the term before us as 
used in Rom. viii. 9, Gal. iv. 6: for it is manifestly 
equivalent to the term Spirit of God. It denotes rather 
the source of an inward influence related both to the 
Son and to the Father, animating, strengthening, and 
guiding from within, the adopted sons of God. In 



68 


THE RESTORATION 


[Part II 


Lect. XXXIV. we shall learn that the source of this 
influence is a divine Person distinct from, yet intimately 
related to, the personality of the Father and of the 
Son. He is called in Gal. iv. 6 “the Spirit of His 
Son” in order to note the close relation between the 
eternal Son and the Spirit given to the adopted sons. 

We shall find that between the Son and the Spirit 
is absolute and eternal and essential harmony, each 
being derived from the one eternal Father, and sharing 
to the full His divine attributes. In the incarnate Son, 
the glory of the Father is set before the eyes of men. 
By the Spirit of God, given to dwell in the adopted 
sons, is revealed in them the glory of the Father and 
the Son. And He is the Bearer to them and in them 
of the mind and power of God. 

Such then is the Spirit of God. To those whom, by 
a divine act which Paul compares to the Roman legal 
process of adoption, God receives into His family as 
sons, He gives the Spirit of the eternal Son, the Bearer 
of the mind and power of God, to be in them the 
animating principle of a life like that of the eternal Son. 

Notice here another difference between Evangelical 
and Roman Adoption. The latter was only formal. 
For the nature of the adopted son was in no wise derived 
from his adopting father. But He who at first breathed 
into Adam rational and moral life, and who in Christ 
has adopted those who by their sin had lost all rights 
of sonship, can and does breathe into His adopted sons 
the breath of a new and divine life, even the Spirit of 
the Son of God. Thus, evangelical adoption, which in 




Lect. IX] 


THE SPIRIT OF ADOPTION 


69 


itself is but a relative change, is immediately followed 
by, and inseparably connected with, the inspiration of 
a new life, the life of the eternal Son. 

The Spirit, thus given, “ cries ” in the hearts of those 
to whom He is given, “Abba, Father.” The word Abba 
is Aramaic, the language commonly spoken in Palestine 
in the days of Christ. Of the same language, we have 
specimens in Mark. v. 41, vii. 34, xv. 34. We may 
speak of it as the mother-tongue of Christ. He spoke 
often and conspicuously of God and to God as Father of 
Himself and of His disciples: “ My Father and your 
Father.” And in the word Abba , preserved in the same 
connection in Mark xiv. 36, Rom. viii. 15, Gal. iv. 6, 
the vocal form used by Christ has passed into other 
languages. To this Aramaic word was added, in all 
three passages just quoted, in order to explain its 
significance, its Greek equivalent Father ; the two words, 
Aramaic and Greek, being blended together in one 
address to God. 

This cry is evidently a genuine human expression of 
man’s consciousness of filial relation to an unseen Father 
in heaven. Hence Paul writes in Rom. viii. 15, “ we 
cry Abba, Father.” Since it is prompted by a super¬ 
human and divine influence, he writes also “ in whom 
we cry.” And, leaving out of sight for a moment the 
human appropriation of the inspired cry the Apostle 
speaks, in Gal. iv. 6, of “ the Spirit of His Son ” as 
Himself “ crying Abba, Father.” 

The process of this divine-human cry, we may trace 
one step further. In Rom. v. 5 we read that “ the love 



70 


THE RESTORATION 


[Part II 


of God is poured out in our hearts through the Holy 
Spirit given to us.” From v. 8 we learn that the love 
of God here mentioned is God’s love to us revealed in 
the gift of Christ to die for man. The love poured out 
in our hearts can be no other than the love of God 
manifested historically in the death of Christ and made 
known to each believer by the Holy Spirit opening his 
intelligence to grasp the significance of the historical 
fact. Thus does the Spirit of the Truth take the things 
of Christ and show them to His disciples. And, like 
poured-out perfume, the love thus revealed fills and 
permeates their consciousness. This love, historically 
manifested and spiritually apprehended, is recognised 
as a Father’s love: and the immediate response is Abba , 
Father. Thus the Spirit of Adoption puts into the 
hearts of the adopted ones a consciousness of, and filial 
confidence in, a Father in heaven. 

As already seen, the same Spirit guides the adopted 
sons along a path of obedience, a path trodden by the 
Firstborn Son, to whose image God has predestined 
the later-born sons to be conformed. That in them 
filial confidence is accompanied by filial obedience, and 
that the Spirit who moves them to call God their Father 
leads them along a path which their moral sense 
approves, is the strongest possible confirmation of the 
truth of the Gospel they have believed and of the reality 
of the adoption it announces. 

The teaching just expounded contains a strong moral 
motive. For we have learnt that confidence in God as 
our Father is wrought in us by that Spirit who ever 




Lect. IX] 


TIIE SPIRIT OF ADOPTION 


7* 


guides men along the path marked out for them by the 
Law of God. Consequently, all sin is resistance to the 
Spirit of Adoption, and therefore tends to weaken our 
filial confidence in God and to dim the brightness of 
our hope and joy. This moral lesson is enforced by 
Paul in Rom. viii. 12-14, and in Gal. v. 16-26, in each 
place as a corollary from his teaching about adoption. 



LECTURE X 


ASSURANCE OF SALVATION 
FTER asserting in Rom. viii. 15 that himself and 



JLX. his readers have received a Spirit of adoption, 
under whose influence they cry Abba, Father, Paul adds 
in v. 16, without any connecting particle, “ the Spirit 
itself bears witness with our spirit that we are children 
of God.” These last words recall v. 14, “ so many as are 
led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.” 
Evidently,^. 16 is added to prove the statement in v. 14, 
i.e. to show how the Spirit of Adoption, which moves us 
to cry Abba, Father, affords proof that they who are 
led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. We shall 
find that it states in compact form the argument already 
involved in vv. 14, 15. 

The Greek word rendered spirit (irvev^id) is neuter. 
Hence the A.V. renders “ the Spirit itself.” But inas¬ 
much as there is proof elsewhere that the Spirit of God 
is a person distinct from the Father, the R.V. renders 
“ the Spirit himself.” It thus reads into Paul’s words 
a just inference from other New Testament teaching. 
This teaching will be expounded in Lect. XXXIV. The 
results there reached, I shall at once assume, and speak 


Lect. X] 


ASSURANCE OF SALVATION 


73 


of “the Spirit Himself.” This last word thrusts into 
prominence the Spirit of God as by His own presence 
Himself bearing witness that they whom He guides are 
children of God. 

Notice here two witnesses, the Spirit of God and our 
own spirit, bearing the same testimony. For the com¬ 
posite verb avvfiapTvpei denotes a joint testimony: and 
the only partner in it here suggested is “our own 
spirit.” The same composite word is found also in 
Rom. ii. 15, ix. 1, in each case denoting a joint and 
confirmatory witness. 

The Greek word rendered bear-witness is frequent in 
the New Testament, and in some classical writers, for 
anything which affords proof. A close parallel to 
Rom. viii. 16 is found in John v. 36: “the works them¬ 
selves which I do bear-witness about Me that the Father 
has sent Me.” Evidently Christ means that His works 
of power afford proof of His divine mission. So in 
John x. 25, to some who asked Him to say plainly 
whether He is the Christ, our Lord replied, “ the works 
which I do in My Father’s name, they bear-witness 
about Me.” In Acts xiv. 3, we read that “the Lord 
bore-witness to the word of His grace, by giving signs 
and wonders to be wrought by the hands ” of Paul and 
Barnabas. Similarly, in v. 17 Paul asserts that the God 
of nature “left not Himself without witness , giving rain 
and fruitful seasons.” In all these cases we have silent 
witnesses ; but they afford convincing proof. 

In several passages, the word witness is used in con¬ 
nection with the Spirit of God. So Acts xv. 8, “ God 



74 


THE RESTORATION 


[Part II 


bore witness for them, by giving the Holy Spirit as also 
to us.” Peter refers to the manifest gift of the Spirit to 
Cornelius and his friends, as narrated in Acts x. 44, 47, 
xi. 15. Notice also Heb. ii. 4: “God bearing witness 
along with, and upon, their witness (o-vve 7 rip,apTvpovvTo^) 
by signs and wonders and various powers and impar- 
tations of the Holy Spirit.” In another mode, viz. by 
prompting an Old Testament prophet to speak and 
write, we are told in Heb. x. 15 that “ the Holy Spirit 
bears-witness” 

How do the Spirit of God and man’s own spirit “ bear 
joint testimony that we are children of God ? ” An 
answer to this question is found in the preceding verse. 
For evidently the human cry (“ we cry, Abba, Father”) 
is a testimony of a human spirit revealing the speaker’s 
consciousness of a filial relation to God. The words 
our spirit are specially appropriate : for experience tells 
us that this cry is a voice, not of man’s lower bodily 
nature, but of that in him which is noblest and nearest 
to God. This cry is also superhuman. For it is 
prompted by the Spirit of God : “ in whom we cry Abba, 
Father.” By prompting that cry, the Spirit of God 
affords proof, and in this sense bears witness, that we 
are children of God. For otherwise we should have 
no right to accost Him as our Father. In other words, 
the filial confidence in God of those led by the Spirit of 
God is itself a decisive and divinely-given proof that 
they are His children. This proof, Paul describes, using 
a mode of speech frequent in the New Testament, 
by saying that the Spirit of God joins with our own 



-F.CT. X] 


ASSURANCE OF SALVATION 


75 


spirit in bearing witness that we are children of 
God. 

An essential link in the argument of Rom. viii. 12-17 
is (v. 14) the guidance of the Spirit and ( v . 13) the 
gradual destruction of the immoral dominion of the 
body. The believer is immediately conscious of his 
filial confidence in God ; and knows by experience that 
it has its seat in the noblest element of his being. But 
he is also conscious of power over sin, of a supernatural 
influence within him which enables him to break off the 
fetters of the bodily life with its desires and passions 
and which leads him along a path which his moral 
sense approves. This filial confidence and moral power 
have manifestly the same source: for they rise or sink 
together. This moral effect identifies the influence 
which prompts it as distinctively that of the “Spirit 
of God v. 14. And, that the same influence moves 
us to call God our Father, as we read in v. 15, leaves no 
room for doubt that we are His children. 

Paul continues his argument by saying that, if we are 
children of God, then are we His heirs, sharers of the 
heritage of Christ, i.e. partners not only of His sufferings 
but of His glory. If so, they who, under the guidance 
of the Spirit, are crushing the appetites of their bodily 
life will share the eternal life of Christ: “ if by the Spirit 
ye are putting to death the actions of the body, ye will 
live.” 

Notice here a confident and intelligent assurance of 
the favour of God. For the sonship here asserted and 
proved involves partnership in the heritage of Christ 



76 


THE RESTORATION 


[Part II 


and a share in the glory about to be revealed. And, 
since “ all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of 
God,” it involves pardon of sin and assurance of pardon. 
Notice also that this inward experience of filial confid¬ 
ence in God is made a basis of argument and a ground 
of “hope of the glory of God” This assurance is 
worthy of further consideration. 

In Lect. IX. we traced the believer’s filial cry to the 
love of God manifested in the death of Christ for man’s 
sin. Consequently, on this well-attested historical fact 
rests his confident assurance of the favour of God. We 
notice also that in Rom. v. 5-11 the spiritual significance 
of this historical fact and of the love therein manifested 
is expounded by logical and conclusive argument. This 
argument assumes Christ’s claim to be “ the Son of 
God ” and the good news of pardon announced by Him. 
This claim and this good news Paul accepted because 
they came from Him who was raised from the dead. 
Consequently, the assurance of personal salvation which 
finds expression in Rom. v. 1-11, viii. 15-18 rests upon 
teaching which we have traced to the lips of Christ, and 
upon facts about Christ attested by abundant and 
decisive documentary and historical evidence. We 
have, as I have shown in the earlier volume, historical 
proof that He announced pardon for all who believe, 
that He claimed to be in a unique sense the Son of 
God, and that in proof of this claim He rose from the 
dead. The glad announcement of forgiveness so well 
attested, we venture ourselves to believe. By so doing 
we enter into the number of those whom God receives as 



Lect. X] 


ASSURANCE OF SALVATION 


77 


righteous, and whom in the Gospel He declares that He 
receives. Now faith is matter of direct consciousness. 
The mind which is at rest knows that it is at rest 
Consequently, by faith we not only enter the number of 
those whom God receives but know that we enter. 

Moreover, we have documentary proof that Christ 
taught that the salvation announced by Him comes 
through His own death on the cross. In the death 
of the Son of God in order to save man, we see a proof 
of the infinite love of God to man. And in this love, 
thus attested, our faith finds still broader and firmer 
ground on which it rests with a security which nothing 
can disturb. 

In Rom. v. 5 Paul mentions for a moment the Holy 
Spirit as revealing to us the love of God manifested in 
the death of Christ. In ch. viii. 1-16 the relation of 
the Spirit of God to our salvation and to our assurance 
of salvation is more fully expounded. We are there 
told that He gives us power over sin and thus sets 
us free from its dominion ; and that He moves us to 
call God our Father, thus bearing witness that we are 
children of God. This last, the Spirit does by opening 
our minds to understand the Gospel of Christ and the 
significance of His death and resurrection. Thus our 
assurance of salvation has an historical and document¬ 
ary basis, capable of intelligent investigation, and a 
superhuman and spiritual source, attested by spiritual 
phenomena known to us by direct introspection and 
incapable of explanation by natural causes. 

Notice carefully that, although our filial confidence in 



7» 


THE RESTORATION 


[Part II 


God and our assurance of personal salvation are derived 
from the Spirit of God and are confirmed by their own 
evidently divine origin, they do not at first, nor after¬ 
wards as their ultimate ground, rest upon this confidence. 
Our assurance of the favour of God rests primarily on 
words and teaching which we have traced by docu¬ 
mentary evidence to the lips of Christ, on the love 
of God manifested in the historical fact of His death, 
and on His well-attested resurrection from the dead. 
To this abundant and decisive objective evidence we 
can go back in moments of doubt, and in it find mental 
and spiritual rest. At the same time we infer with con¬ 
fidence that the faith which rests securely on these 
words and facts is wrought in us by the Spirit of God ; 
and in the manifest presence of the Spirit in our hearts, 
guiding our steps and breathing into us confidence in 
God we find important confirmation of the word which 
at first in our guilt and fear and darkness we ventured 
to believe. 

Closely connected with, yet distinct from, the double 
witness mentioned in Rom. viii. 16, we find in 2 Cor. 
i. 12 another inward witness, viz. that of our con¬ 
science : “ For this our exultation is the witness of 
our conscience that with holiness and sincerity of God, 
not in worldly wisdom but in the grace of God, we 
behaved ourselves in the world, and especially towards 
you.” Here that inner faculty by which a man searches 
and judges his own actions and motives bears witness 
to the holiness and sincerity of Paul’s past life. We 
have thus in the Christian life four distinct, though 




Lect. X] 


ASSURANCE OF SALVATION 


79 


closely related, witnesses : (i) the testimony of Christ 
(cp. John iii. n, “ what we have seen we bear witness”) 
preserved for us in the New Testament, (2) the testi¬ 
mony of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the Truth, who 
makes the recorded words of Christ to be a living 
voice in our hearts, (3) the re-echo of this voice in our 
own spirit, in that element of our nature on which the 
Spirit directly operates, and (4) the testimony of our 
conscience to the moral effects wrought by the Gospel 
in our lives and hearts. This last is the final verification 
of all that goes before. 

An assurance of personal salvation involving forgive¬ 
ness of sins is conspicuous in the First Epistle of John. 
So 1 John ii. 12, “ I write to you, little children, because 
your sins are forgiven you for His name’s sake.” 
Whether the words “ little children ” refer to believers 
generally or to the latest-born children of God, these 
words imply that forgiveness of sins is a privilege of 
all who believe in Christ. And manifestly the persons 
here referred to knew that their sins were forgiven. 
Otherwise these words would be an important announce¬ 
ment, whereas they are given merely as explaining the 
reason for writing. Full assurance of salvation is also 
asserted in 1 John iii. 14, “we know that we have 
passed out of death into life because we love the 
brethren.” Notice also 1 John iii. 24, “and he that 
keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in 
him. And in this we know that He abides in us, from 
the Spirit which He has given to us.” In this passage, 

the words “ in this ” may refer either back to “ keeps 
7 



8o 


THE RESTORATION 


[Part II 


His commandments,” or forward to “from the Spirit:** 
in the former case the writer asserts that our knowledge 
of our inward union with Christ has its root in our 
obedience to His commands and its source in the 
Spirit of God given to us ; in the latter he asserts only 
that our assurance is derived from the Spirit. In either 
case our knowledge of union with Christ is traced 
indirectly or directly to the Holy Spirit. More definite 
is i John iv. 12, 13, “if we love one another God dwells 
in us and His love is perfected in us. In this we know 
that we abide in Him and He in us because He has 
given to us of His Spirit.” Here the words “we know 
. . . because ** seem to point to a logical inference. We 
find ourselves loving our brethren with a love which we 
know to be not human but divine and therefore given 
to us by the Spirit of God : and from this we infer that 
we are inwardly united to Him ( [vv ,. 10, 11) who “so 
loved us ” that “ He sent His Son to be a propitiation 
for our sins.” 

These passages, while approaching in modes of 
thought those of Paul expounded above, do not assert 
so definitely as does Paul that our filial confidence in 
God is a divinely-given proof that we are His children 
and shall share the heritage of Christ 

In 1 John v. 13 we are told that the Epistle was 
wiitten in order that they who believe in the name of 
the Son of God may know that they have eternal life. 
In other words, assurance of salvation is one purpose 
for which the New Testament was written. This implies 
that our assurance rests upon the written word. 



Lect. X] 


ASSURANCE OF SALVATION 


81 


A secure objective basis for assurance of personal 
salvation is found in the words of Christ recorded in 
the Fourth Gospel. In John v. 24 Christ says, “Verily, 
verily, I say to you, He that hears My word and 
believes Him that sent Me has eternal life, and docs 
not come into judgment, but is passed out of death 
into life.” Similarly, John iii. 16, 18, 36, vi. 35, 40, 47, 
xi. 25, 26. In these passages Christ asserts, with 
conspicuous and emphatic repetition, that everyone who 
believes in Him has eternal life. This can only mean 
that they who believe have a life which death cannot 
destroy and which will abide for ever. This implies 
forgiveness of sins. For all have sinned; and the 
wages of sin is death. They who venture to believe 
these glad tidings of life read in them an announcement 
of their own pardon. For they arc immediately con¬ 
scious of their own faith ; and therefore know that they 
come within the number of those for whom the Gospel 
proclaims forgiveness. Thus in the recorded words of 
Christ they find a firm objective ground for faith in 
Christ and for assurance that, though sinners, they arc 
heirs of the infinite blessings promised by God to those 
who believe in Christ. And this objective evidence is 
confirmed, as we have seen and shall in the following 
lectures see still more clearly, by subjective evidence 
found in their own inner life. 

The doctrine of assurance as expounded in this lecture 
is guarded from immoral abuse by the plain teaching of 
Paul and John that the judgment of God is against all 
who commit sin, teaching re-echoed, with an authority 



82 


THE RESTORATION 


[Part II 


we dare not contradict, by the judge supreme who sits 
enthroned in the moral sense of man. As examples, I 
may quote Rom. ii. 1-29 which forms a foregoing moral 
basis for the evangelical teaching in the chapters follow¬ 
ing ; also ch. viii. 1-16, where the two elements are 
interwoven throughout; Gal. v. 16—vi. 10, following 
ch. iii. 26—iv. 7; and 1 John ii. 29—iii. 24, where again 
the two elements are interwoven. This teaching, thus 
re-echoed, makes it impossible for us to believe that we 
enjoy the favour of God while doing that which He 
condemns. The possible or conceivable or inconceivable 
case of men having their conscience so seared that they 
believe that God smiles on them because of their faith 
or of some religious observance, even while continuing 
in sin, need not perplex us. For any such abnormal 
development cannot shake the well-grounded confidence 
of sincere servants of Christ 



LECTURE XI 


THE NEW BIRTH 

I N John i. 12 we read, in close agreement with the 
teaching of Paul, “ so many as received Him, He 
gave to them authority to become children of God, to 
those who believe in His name.” These children of 
God, the writer further describes by adding, “ who were 
born , not from blood, nor from the will of flesh, nor from 
the will of man, but from God” The phrase born from 
God evidently describes an inward spiritual change 
accompanying entrance into the privileges of the chil¬ 
dren of God. 

This teaching makes natural birth a metaphor of the 
spiritual life. It implies that, just as by natural birth 
we enter into a new life and into the visible world and 
receive powers fitting us for life in the world, so in those 
who believe in Christ a spiritual change has taken place 
which has given to them a new life, a new spiritual 
environment, and new spiritual powers. Of this new 
life, God is the source. It is not derived “ from blood,” 
i.e. from the material constitution of living bodies, nor 
“ from the will of flesh,” i.e. from animal instincts, nor 
“from the will of man,” i.e. from human desire and 
purpose, but “ from God.” 


83 


8 4 


THE RESTORATION 


[Part II 


In John iii. 3-8, similar teaching is traced to the lips 
of Christ. To Nicodemus He says, “ except a man be 
born from above (or, born again) he cannot see the King¬ 
dom of God.” The precise rendering is unimportant. 
For a birth from above must necessarily be a second 
birth: and a birth from the Spirit ( v . 5) must be a birth 
from above. 

This new or higher birth is said to be “ from water 
and Spirit.” That these two different sources are united 
under one preposition, places them in close relation. 
The contrast of water and Spirit recalls the Baptist’s 
words recorded in John i. 26 and 33 : “I baptize with 
water . . . this is He that baptizes with the Holy Spirit.” 
That this new life is derived from the Spirit, is indis¬ 
putable. For, as we shall see, the Spirit of God is the 
divine inward channel of all blessing from God to man, 
and the inward immediate source of all life, natural and 
spiritual. Consequently, they who are born from God 
must be born from the Spirit 

The simplest interpretation of from water is to take 
it as a reference to Baptism. By commissioning His 
disciples to baptize all the nations, Christ made Baptism 
obligatory to all His followers. To men who, like 
Nicodemus, first received the Gospel in adult age, 
Baptism was a formal confession of Christ. And such 
confession Christ required from all His followers. In 
this important sense, to Nicodemus, Baptism was a 
condition of salvation. It was for him the only gateway 
into the new life. And as such it might be, as here, 
spoken of as a source of the new birth. For, every 



Lect. XI] 


THE NEW BIRTH 


85 


condition may be looked at as a source of that which 
is dependent upon it. Nicodemus shrank from public 
confession of Christ. In these words our Lord suggests 
plainly that there is no other way into the Kingdom 
of God. 

To the words just expounded, Christ adds in John iii. 
6 a comparison and contrast of natural and spiritual 
birth similar to that suggested in John i. 13. The 
stream cannot rise above its source. Consequently, 
“ that which is born from flesh is flesh: ” i.e. a life 
derived from a merely animal or human source must be 
itself only animal or human, whereas a life derived from 
a spiritual source partakes the higher nature of its 
source. The new birth is further illustrated by another 
comparison. The Greek word rendered spirit also 
denotes wind. Our Lord points, in John iii. 8, to the 
wind, mysterious in its source and aim, and declares 
that similar mystery overhangs the spiritual birth. 

Doubtless in these words of Christ to Nicodemus 
we have the source of the Evangelist’s own teaching in 
John i. 13. 

Similar teaching meets us in the First Epistle of 
John, a document evidently from the same hand as the 
Fourth Gospel. In I John ii. 29 we read, “if ye know 
that He is righteous, ye know that everyone that does 
righteousness has been born from Him.” Here all 
human righteousness is traced to Christ through a super¬ 
natural birth. The writer goes on to speak of his 
readers in 1 John iii. 1, 2 as “children of God.” In 
v . 8 we read that “he who commits sin is from the 



86 


THE RESTORATION 


[Part II 


devil;” and in v. 9, “ everyone that is born from God 
commits no sin .. . and he cannot sin because he is born 
from God. In this are manifest the children of God and 
the children of the devil.” Similarly, in I John v. I, 2, 
“everyone that believes that Jesus is the Christ is born 
from God. And everyone that loves Him that begat 
loves him also that is begotten from Him ; ” also in 
v. 4, “all that is begotten from God conquers the 
world.” Other similar teaching in v. 18. These pas¬ 
sages assert that all who believe in Christ and all who 
do right are born from God, and that the new life thus 
received, so long as it lives in them, makes sin im¬ 
possible. In other words, they have received from God 
a new life which, like natural birth, brings them into 
a new environment and gives to them new powers 
corresponding to it. 

Teaching practically the same is found in i Peter i. 3 : 
“ who, according to His great mercy, has begotten us 
again to a living hope, through the resurrection of 
Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incor¬ 
ruptible and undefiled and unfading.” Here God is 
the Author of the new birth : and the resurrection of 
Christ is the instrument by which it was brought about. 
By raising Christ, God gave to men an historical foun¬ 
dation for that faith which is in a unique sense the 
condition of salvation ; and thus virtually raised, with 
Him, to share His resurrection life, all who will after¬ 
wards put faith in Him. For, had He not risen from 
the dead, there had been no saving faith, no Gospel, 
no Pentecost, and no Church of Christ. So in v. 21 : 



Lect. XI] 


THE NEW BIRTH 


87 


“who through Him are believers in God, who raised 
Him from the dead and gave Him glory ; so that your 
faith and hope are in God.” The state into which the 
new life brings those who receive it is one not so much 
of possession as of “ hope.” But it is a “ living hope : ” 
for it is the inspiration of a new life. The object of this 
hope is an “inheritance,” i.e. an enrichment to be 
received in virtue of filial relation to the source of the 
new life. Just so, the heir to an estate is born, not to 
immediate possession, but to a hope of wealth to be 
his in the future, and this in virtue of his filial relation 
to its owner. 

Similarly, in i Peter i. 23: “ born again, not from 
corruptible seed, but incorruptible, by means of the 
living and abiding word of God.” The word seed recalls 
1 John iii. 9: “ his seed remains in him, and he cannot 
sin because he is born from God.” Here the Gospel, 
which is God’s voice and word to man, is represented as 
the instrument of the new birth. And appropriately so : 
for the good news of salvation is the means by which 
God evokes in man saving faith. 

Teaching practically the same as the above is found 
in James i. 18: “of His own will brought He us forth, 
by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first- 
fruit of His creatures.” 

It is now evident that Peter and James and John, 
and Christ as His words are recorded in the Fourth 
Gospel, agree to teach that they who believe in Christ 
have experienced an inward change analogous to birth ; 
or, in other words, have received from God, while the 



88 


THE RESTORATION 


[Part II 


natural life derived from natural birth still lives in 
them, a new and higher life breathed into them by the 
Spirit of God, placing them in a new spiritual environ¬ 
ment, and giving them new spiritual faculties corres¬ 
ponding to this new environment. This new life is 
obtained by faith. To the earliest disciples it was 
obtained by Baptism. For, by ordaining this rite and 
commanding the Apostles to baptize all the nations, 
Christ made it obligatory on all His servants; and 
therefore, to all who had not already received it, a 
condition of His favour. 

Already we have seen that the terms Justification 
through faith and Adoption are found in the New 
Testament only from the pen or lips of Paul. It is 
worthy of note that the New birth is mentioned by 
Paul only in Titus iii. 5, where we read of the “ bath 
of the new birth.” These words, I do not know how 
to interpret except as a reference to Baptism. Cp. Acts 
xxii. 16: “ arise and be baptized, and wash away thy 
sins.” The connection in Titus iii. 5 between salvation, 
the bath of the new birth, and the Holy Spirit, recalls 
John iii. 5. An approach to the doctrine of the new 
birth is found also in 1 Cor. iv. 15: “ not many fathers: 
for in Christ Jesus through the Gospel I begat you.” 
Here, as in the teaching of Peter and James, th<* Gospel 
is the instrument of a new birth. But the spiritual 
change thus described is traced only as far as the 
preacher of the Gospel. 

We now see that Adoption, accompanied by the 
gift of the Spirit of adoption is a distinctive element 



Lect. XI] 


THE NEW BIRTH 


89 


of the teaching of Paul; and that the New Birth is 
an element common to some other writers of the New 
Testament, especially to John, but not familiar to the 
thought of Paul. The two phrases, however, represent, 
under different aspects, substantially the same spiritual 
experience. Paul, with his legal bent of mind, looks 
upon the believer’s reception into the family of God 
and into the rights of sons, as forensic, i.e. simply as 
a changed relation of man to God, in accordance with 
the principles of the Law of God. But a mere forensic 
change will not supply man’s deep spiritual need. Con¬ 
sequently, Paul supplements his teaching about Adop¬ 
tion by that of the gift of the Spirit to the adopted 
sons. So, in addition to passages already quoted, 
Eph. i. 5, 13, 14: “ predestined for adoption ... having 
believed, ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit, who is 
an earnest of our inheritance.” The Holy Spirit thus 
given to those who believe becomes in them the 
animating and directing principle of a new life, makes 
them conscious of a new environment, and endows them 
with capacities for a new life therein. These ideas 
permeate the entire teaching of Paul. Every church- 
member is assumed to have received the indwelling 
presence of the Holy Spirit and thus to have been 
made alive in Christ, and to have received from the 
Spirit powers fitting him for the new environment 
into which the new life has brought him. 

Other writers of the New Testament, and our Lord 
as His words are there recorded, look upon the same 
great change from another point of view and describe 



90 


THE RESTORATION 


[Part II 


it as a new birth. And rightly so: for it is an 
entrance into a new life and into a new world. The 
element common to, and underlying, these two modes 
of presenting the inward change which follows justifica¬ 
tion is the teaching of nearly all the writers of the New 
Testament that those whose sins are forgiven are also 
sons of God. Paul, remembering that God gave Christ 
to die in order to harmonise the pardon of sin with His 
own justice, represents believers as sons of God by the 
legal process of adoption; supplementing this by his 
teaching about the Spirit of Adoption. The other 
writers represent them as sons of God in virtue of 
a new birth wrought in them through the agency of 
the Holy Spirit. That this common element gave rise 
to these two distinct, though harmonious, modes of 
expression, reveals its deep and firm hold of the 
thought of the early followers of Christ. 

Results attained. In Part I. we found man 
guilty of actual sin and thus shut out from the smile of 
God and exposed to the penalty which inevitably follows 
sin, and unable either to win back the favour of God 
or to obey in the future ; but at the same time an object 
of influences from God tending towards repentance and 
righteousness and revealing a purpose of God to save 
fallen and rebellious man. In Part II. the accomplish¬ 
ment of this purpose has begun. Man has been rescued 
from ruin and has entered the path which leads to the 
glorious inheritance of the sons of God. 

To the sinner God has revealed his sin and ruin, and 



Lfct. XI] 


THE NEW BIRTH 


9* 


has thus forced from him a cry for deliverance and 
evoked in him an earnest purpose to forsake sin. The 
penitent has heard the good news of salvation 
announced by Christ; and, in view of the infinite love 
manifested on His cross and the infinite power mani¬ 
fested in His resurrection from the dead, he has 
ventured to believe it. He has thus come within the 
number of those for whom Christ announced pardon. 
Although his original rights as a son of God were 
forfeited by sin, God has received the now justified 
sinner into His family and has counted him among 
the heirs to the inheritance of Christ. Both pardon 
and reception into the family of God were in harmony 
with the principles of justice. They are therefore 
described by Paul as justification and adoption. 

The happy change which has taken place is much 
more than legal. For the adopting Father has put 
into the bosom of His adopted sons the Spirit of His 
firstborn Son to be in them the animating principle 
of a new life like that of Christ. The Spirit thus 
given is a new inward moral power breaking the fetters 
of past sin, and a fruitful seed of all virtues. The 
same Spirit reveals to them, i.e. brings home to their 
consciousness, the infinite love of God manifested, i.e* 
set publicly before the eyes of men, in the death of 
Christ; and thus evokes in them the filial cry, My 
Father God. This cry, the believer recognises as no 
mere human voice but the voice of that Spirit who 
has already, by breaking the bonds of sin, proved 
Himself to be the Spirit of God. This filial confidence 



92 


THE RESTORATION 


[Part II 


in God thus becomes a decisive confirmation of that 
Gospel which in his sin and helplessness he dared 
to believe. Thus a cry from man to God becomes 
a voice from God to man assuring the adopted children 
of their adoption into the family of God. 

By this inbreathed Spirit God gives to the pardoned 
ones a new and divine life, brings them into a new 
spiritual world, and endows them with new faculties 
corresponding to this new spiritual environment. This 
entrance into a new and divine life is appropriately 
called a New Birth, a Birth from God. 

Man is thus restored to his normal relation to God. 
At his creation, God breathed into man His own life, 
thus making him a son of God. This sonship, with 
all its privileges, was lost by sin. But the lost privileges 
have now been restored ; and man rejoices under the 
smile of a loving Father in heaven. 

The child of God is born, not to the immediate posses¬ 
sion, but to the hope, of a great inheritance. Moreover 
he is in a state of probation, not at the end, but at the 
beginning, of the path which leads to life eternal. And 
the way is beset by enemies and perils. But the infinite 
cost at which God has opened for man an entrance into 
this way of life assures us that whatever is needed to 
guide and guard His children along it will be given. 

It remains to us to trace this path ; to note its relation 
to other paths, and to various objects in man’s environ¬ 
ment, the safeguards by which it is protected, and the 
goal towards which it leads. 



PART III 


THE WA V OF HOLINESS 


LECTURE XII 

HOLINESS IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 
CONSPICUOUS feature of the Epistles of Paul 



jTjl and of the Book of Revelation, and in less 
degree of other parts of the New Testament, is the 
use of the word holy as a common designation of 
the servants of Christ The same word is still more 
frequently used, throughout the New Testament, as 
an attribute of the Spirit of God given, as we have 
seen, to His adopted sons to be the inward guide of 
their life. From this word, therefore, we may expect 
to learn something about the New Life in Christ 

The conspicuous use of the word holy and its cognates 
in the New Testament is made still more conspicuous 
by the rarity in classical Greek of the word thus ren¬ 
dered ; and by its use in the Greek version of the Old 
Testament as a constant rendering of a Hebrew word 
found there very frequently, always in a religious sense. 
This directs us at once to the Old Testament for the ideas 
conveyed by the word holy in the New Testament 


93 



94 


HOLINESS 


[Part III 


It is needful to say that, whereas one Greek word or 
family of words is almost always used for the one 
Hebrew word now before us, this family of words has in 
the English Bible two sets of renderings, viz. holy y hallow , 
holiness , and saint, sanctify , sanctification. These render¬ 
ings are absolutely equivalent, as are the words righteous 
and just, belief and faith. They may be transposed 
without error. A saint is a holy person : to hallow is to 
sanctify : holiness is the state resulting from sanctification. 

These words, so frequent and conspicuous in the later 
books of the Law, and more or less throughout the Old 
Testament, are found in Genesis only once, Gen. ii. 3, 
in a passage more closely related to Exodus than is 
any other part of Genesis. This suggests, and further 
research will prove, that the idea conveyed by the word 
belongs specifically to the covenant given to Israel 
through Moses as distinguished from the earlier cove¬ 
nant made with Abraham. To the books containing 
the Mosaic Covenant we therefore turn in our search for 
the meaning of the word holy. 

In the solemn opening scene of that covenant, from 
the lips of God, in a connection of thought wonderfully 
indicative of the nature of the covenant He had come 
down to make, we hear the great word henceforth to be 
so deeply interwoven into the religious life of Israel and 
of mankind. God’s words to Moses from the bush, as 
recorded in Exodus iii. 5, M Draw not nigh hither . . . 
for the place thou art standing upon is ground of 
holiness introduce a covenant of which one great feature 
was to be Holiness embodied in visible places and things, 



Lect. XII] 


IN TIIE OLD TESTAMENT 


95 


a holiness which made the holy objects partly or alto¬ 
gether inaccessible to man. The meaning is clear. God 
wished to say that the ground stood in special relation 
to Himself; and that, because it was God’s ground, none 
could tread it except by His command. 

Very instructive are the words of Exodus xiii. 2 : 
“ sanctify for Me the firstborn.” For they are at once 
explained by words following, “ it is Mine.” So also v. 12 : 
“ thou shalt make all that open the womb pass over to 
Jehovah ; the males are Jehovah’s.” With this compare 
Num. iii. 12, 13 : " I have taken the Levites from among 
the sons of Israel; and the Levites shall be Mine. For 
Mine are all the firstborn. For in the day when I smote 
all the firstborn in Egypt I sanctified for Myself every 
firstborn in Israel, from man to beast. Mine shall they 
be.” Also Num. viii. 16, 17: “ they are altogether given 
to Me from among the sons of Israel. Instead of such 
as open every womb, even every firstborn from the 
sons of Israel, I have taken them for Myself.” And 
Deut. xv. 19: “every firstborn male thou shalt sanctify 
for Jehovah thy God ; thou shalt do no work with the 
firstborn of thine ox, nor shear the firstborn of thy sheep.” 
These passages make quite clear the meaning of the 
word sanctify . The firstborn were to be holy in the sense 
that they were henceforth to stand in special relation to 
God as His property, and were to be touched by man 
only according to the bidding, and to work out the 
purposes, of God. In other words, they were not man’s 
but God’s. 

The solemn words of Exodus xix. 6, "ye shall be 
8 





HOLINESS 


[Part Ill 


to Me a kingdom of priests, a holy nation,” are 
specially important as illustrating the meaning of the 
word holy y because of their contrast with Exodus 
xiii. 2. They are explained by the foregoing words, 
“ ye shall be a peculiar treasure to Me above all 
people : for all the earth is Mine.” Of these words, 
the phrase “ a holy nation ” is evidently a summing 
up. And, by the words “kingdom of priests,” the 
word holy is linked with the priestly ritual soon to 
be established. Just as in Egypt God had already 
declared that the firstborn should stand in special 
relation to Himself as His property, in virtue of their 
deliverance from the destroyer, so now He says that 
the entire nation shall stand in a similar, though 
not exactly the same, relation to Himself, in virtue 
(Exodus xix. 4) of its deliverance from Egypt. We 
have here an anticipation of the holiness which now 
belongs to every member of the Church of Christ. 
The same wider use of the word is found in Lev. 
xi. 45, “ I am Jehovah that brought you up out of the 
land of Egypt, to be your God : and ye shall be holy; 
for holy am I.” So also ch. xx. 26: “ ye shall be 
holy for Me; for holy am I, Jehovah: and I have 
separated you from the peoples, that ye may be Mine.” 
In these last passages we have subjective, holiness; 
about which I shall say more in the course of this 
lecture. To men already claimed by God to be His 
own, and in that sense already holy , God declares that 
they shall be holy , i.e. that they shall render to Him 
the devotion He requires. 



Lect. XII] 


IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 


97 


Exodus xix. 23, “set bounds around the mountain 
and sanctify it,” develops ch. iii. 5. By putting a 
fence, Moses was to mark off the mountain as be¬ 
longing to God, and therefore not to be trodden by 
man or beast except at His bidding. 

And now, beneath the shadow of the holy mountain, 
rises before us the complicated solemnity of the Mosaic 
ritual: and of that ritual every vessel and every rite 
bears on its front, in broad and deep characters, the 
name of holiness. 

In the Decalogue God commands, as recorded in 
Exodus xx. 8, “ Remember the Sabbath Day to 
sanctify it;” and adds in v. 11, “Jehovah blessed the 
Sabbath Day and sanctified it” So Gen. ii. 3, “ God 
blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: ” the only 
place in Genesis where the word holy or sanctify is 
found. With this compare Exodus xxxi. 14; also 
Isaiah lviii. 13, “turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, 
from doing thy pleasure on My day of holiness.” The 
tabernacle is called the sanctuary or holy place : Exodus 
xxv. 8. The outer chamber bears the abstract title, 
holiness : the inner one bears the superlative name, 
holiness of holinesses , conveniently rendered, holy of 
holies: ch. xxvi. 33. The same august superlative title 
is given in ch. xxix. 37 to the brazen altar; in 
ch. xxx. 29 to the vessels of the tabernacle; and in 
Lev. ii. 3 to the bodies of animals offered in sacrifice. 
In this last passage it is explained by the words, “ the 
remnant of the meat-offering is for Aaron and for 
his sons : it is holy of holies from the burnings of 



98 


HOLINESS 


[Part III 


Jehovah” In other words, the unburnt parts of the 
sacrifices were God’s ; and were therefore to be given 
to the priests, His servants. So absolute was the 
holiness of these sacred objects that God said three 
times, in Exodus xxix. 37, xxx. 29, Lev. vi. 18, “ what¬ 
ever touches the altar shall be holy: ” i.e. by that 
touch it ceases to be man’s possession and must hence¬ 
forth be used only for the purposes of God. Aaron 
and his clothes, and his sons and their clothes, were 
holy: Exodus xxix. 21. So was the oil: “Upon 
man’s flesh it shall not be poured, neither shall ye 
make any like it: it is holy and shall be holy to you. 
Whoever compounds any like it, and whoever puts 
any of it upon a stranger, shall be even cut off from 
his people:” Exodus xxx. 32. Houses, fields, and 
cattle were made holy by consecration to God: Lev. 
xxvii. 9, 14. Their holiness is thus described in v. 21 : 
“the field shall be holy for Jehovah, like the field of the 
anathema : for the priest, the possession of it shall be.” 
If a man wanted back something he had sanctified 
he must pay for it: v. 15. But some objects were 
given to God by an irrevocable consecration, and 
were called anathema and holy of holies', w. 28, 29. 
The Nazarite was holy, Num. vi. 5, 8: and his sacrifice 
was “holiness for the priest,” v. 20. The censers 
of Korah (Num. xvi. 38) were holy; and therefore 
could not be put to common use. The fourth year’s 
fruit of the land of Canaan was holy : Lev. xix. 24. 
Lastly, God says to Israel in Deut. vii. 6: “ a holy 
people thou art for Jehovah thy God: thee has 



Lect. XII] 


IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 


99 


Jehovah thy God chosen to be His, for a people of 
special possession beyond all the peoples which are 
upon the face of the earth.” 

The above passages from the Books of the Law 
are samples of hundreds of others. In all of them 
the meaning is the same, and is clearly marked. 
These holy objects stand in special relation to God 
as His property. Consequently, they are not man’s. 
They have no human owner who can do with them 
as he pleases. None can touch them except at the 
bidding of God. Else, as we learn from Mai. iii. 8, 
they will be guilty of robbing God. The word holy is 
the inviolable Broad-Arrow of the divine King of Israel. 

The sanctification of the firstborn, the Sabbath, 
the tabernacle and altar, and Aaron and his sons, is 
attributed to God in Num. iii. 13, Exodus xx. 11, 
xxix. 44. For, the devotion of these objects to God 
originated, not in man but in God. And, apart from 
anything man does or fails to do, God’s claim placed 
them in a new and peculiar and solemn relation to 
Himself. Man might profane the Sabbath; but it still 
remained a holy day, a day which God had claimed for 
Himself. This relation to God, created by God’s claim 
and incapable of being destroyed by man’s unfaith¬ 
fulness, may be called objective HOLINESS. It is 
the most common use of the word. In this sense God 
sanctified these objects for Himself. 

In Exodus xix. 14, xxviii. 41, xxix. 1, xl. 9-13, Moses, 
as the minister through whom was brought about the 
devotion to God of these objects claimed by Him, is 



IOO 


HOLINESS 


[Part III 


said to have sanctified Mount Sinai, Aaron, and the 
tabernacle and its vessels. Similarly, in Exodus xix. 22, 
Lev. xi. 44, xxvii. 14, the priests and the people are said 
to sanctify themselves and some of their possessions. 
They did this, either by formally placing themselves 
or their goods at the disposal of God, or by separating 
themselves from whatever was inconsistent with the 
service of God. This may be called SUBJECTIVE 
HOLINESS. It is man’s surrender to God of that 
which God has claimed. 

This distinction of objective and subjective holiness 
is of the utmost importance. The former traces 
holiness to its source, viz. God : the latter points to the 
obligation laid on man by this claim of God. The 
two senses are often found together: e.g. (Exodus 
xx. 11) God sanctified the Sabbath; therefore ( v . 8) 
man is bidden to sanctify it 

Light is shed upon the radical meaning of the word 
holy by Gen. xxxviii. 21 and Deut. xxiii. 17, where 
a cognate word is used to designate a profligate woman. 
This recalls the “ sacred slave-girls ” at Corinth “ whom 
both men and women presented to the goddess : ” see 
Strabo, bk. viii. 378. The essential idea of holiness 
is found here, though in a peculiar form. Devotion to 
an impure deity creates impurity in the devotee; 
whereas devotion to God implies separation from all 
impurity. 

Another trace of the word is found in the name 
Kadesh, in Gen. xiv. 7, xvi. 14, xx. 1, Num. xiii. 26, 
Joshua xx. 7, 1 Chron. vi. 72, etc. It suggests that the 



Lect. XII] 


IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 


foi 


towns which bore this name were specially devoted to 
the service of some deity. 

Throughout the Old Testament, the word holy and 
its cognates are found in the meaning expounded above. 
The words of Joshua iii. 5, “sanctify yourselves: for 
to-morrow Jehovah will do wonders among you,” recall 
Exodus xix. 10: those of Joshua v. 15, “the place 
whereon thou art standing is holiness,” recall Exodus 
iii. 5. Notice Joshua vi. 19: “all the silver and gold is 
holiness to Jehovah: into the treasury of Jehovah it 
shall come.” We read in ch. xx. 7 that “ they sanctified 
Kadesh in Galilee ” to be a city of refuge : for these 
stood in special relation to God. Micah’s mother said, 
in Judges xvii. 3, “ I have altogether sanctified the silver 
for Jehovah for she supposed that by using the money 
to make an image she was devoting it to His service. 

In the Book of Psalms, the word sanctify is never 
found : a clear proof that it was not equivalent to purify y 
an idea which not unfrequently occurs. It is found only 
once in the other poetical books, in Job i. 5; and then 
in a ritual sense. In Psalm lxxxix. 5, 7, Job v. I, xv. 15, 
the word holy or saint denotes the angels. And appro¬ 
priately so: for our chief thought about them is that 
they stand in special relation to God, and are doing His 
work. “ Aaron, Jehovah's holy one,” in Psalm cvi. 16, 
recalls the ritual phraseology of the Law. Very rarely 
in the poetical books are good men called holy : e.g. 
Psalm xvi. 3, “ to the holy ones which are in the earth; ” 
Psalm xxxiv. 9, “fear Jehovah, ye His holy ones.” 
These passages were prompted by a consciousness that 



102 


HOLINESS 


[Part III 


the good man stands in a special relation to God, as 
God’s own ; and are ‘thus an approach to the New 
Testament use of the word. This use was rare because 
as yet holiness was revealed only in symbolic outline. 
The inward reality underlying the symbolic form could 
not be clearly seen until the appearance of Him who 
was a perfect embodiment in flesh and blood of what 
the symbols dimly foreshadowed. 

In the later books of the Old Testament traces of this 
moral sense are occasionally found. The lady of Shunem 
observed that Elisha stood specially near to God, and 
she spoke of him in 2 Kings iv. 9 as a “ man of God, a 
holy man.” In prophetic vision, Isaiah sees the day 
(Isaiah iv. 3) when “all that are left in Jerusalem shall 
be called holy.” So ch. lxii. 12 : “ they shall call them 
a people of holiness, redeemed of Jehovah.” In the 
Book of Daniel, e.g. chs. vii. 18, 22, 25, 27, the word holy 
is a frequent designation of the future people of God. 

In the Books of Chronicles and Nehemiah the words 
holy and sanctify are common, always in a ritual sense. 
So 2 Chron. xxiii. 6: “ let none come into the house of 
Jehovah except the priests. They shall come in : for 
they are holy.” 

A foreshadowing of the universal consecration an¬ 
nounced in the Gospel of Christ is found in Zech. xiv. 
20, 21 : “ In that day there shall be upon the bells of 
the horses Holiness for Jehovah: and the pots in the 
house of Jehovah shall be like the bowls before the 
altar. And every pot in Jerusalem and in Judah shall 
be holiness for Jehovah of Hosts: and all those who 



Lect. XII] 


IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 


103 


sacrifice shall come and take of them and cook in them. 
And no Canaanite shall be any more in the house of 
Jehovah of Hosts, in that day” We have here under 
levitical forms important Gospel truth. 

The Holiness of God will be discussed in Lect. XXXII. 

The above quotations are samples of the use of a word 
found in the Old Testament more than eight hundred 
times. Its frequency, the variety of the objects to which 
it is applied, and the definiteness of the one idea which 
in all these objects the word conveys, make its meaning 
quite clear and beyond doubt. All the various holy 
objects, rational or irrational, stand in special relation to 
God as His possession ; and therefore must not be used 
or touched by man except at God’s bidding and to do 
His work. He has claimed them for His own ; and His 
claim lays upon man an obligation to devote them to 
His service. This definite idea is present, in various 
forms, wherever in the Old Testament the word holy is 
found. 

As already stated, this conspicuous Hebrew word is 
in the Septuagint Version almost always translated by 
one Greek word. This one word is, however, not its 
most exact Greek equivalent. The not uncommon word 
Upd? denotes that which is consecrated to a deity : an 
idea not unfamiliar to Greek thought Strange to say, 
this at first sight appropriate rendering is, with one 
slight exception, never used by the Greek translators. 
As a rendering of the adjective holy , it never occurs. 
And only once is the substantive iepov used in its 



104 


HOLINESS 


Part III 


frequent New Testament sense of sanctuary , viz. in that 
one strange passage (Ezek. xxviii. 18) in which we read of 
the sanctuary, not of Jehovah, but of Tyre. The reason 
is not far to seek. Tepo<? had been polluted by contact 
with the corruptions of idolatry; and was therefore 
unfit for service in the temple of God. Of this we have 
an example in the sacred prostitutes of Corinth. It is 
true that in the Hebrew language a similar corruption 
had defiled one member of this family of sacred words. 
See, as noted on p. ioo, Gen. xxxviii. 21, Deut. xxiii. 17. 
But the defiled member was rigidly excluded from the 
service of God : and the defilement went no further. 
Whereas, in Greek, the defilement reached and saturated 
every member. With the Hebrew word, as a result of 
its consecration to the service of Jehovah and in spite 
of the occasional profanation of sacred things, were 
associated ideas of purity and goodness. With the 
Greek word, inconsequence of the fearful debasement 
of idolatry, were associated conceptions the vilest and 
worst Another word must therefore be found to carry 
to the nations of the West, in its purity, the Hebrew 
conception of holiness. 

This honourable office was conferred on the compara¬ 
tively rare word, ayios. Its rarity was a recommendation. 
For, that it had so few associations of its own, made it 
the fitter to take up the meaning and appropriate to 
itself the associations of the Hebrew word. And its 
associations, though few, were suitable. In classical 
Greek it is never found as a predicate of gods or men ; 
and was therefore free from the ideas of imperfection 



Lect. XII] 


IN TI1E OLD TESTAMENT 


105 


and sin which belonged in the minds of idolaters to both 
gods and men. It is frequently used by Herodotus, and 
occasionally by other writers, to describe temples of 
special sacredness; and seems to denote the reverence 
which their connection with the deity, iepov , gave them 
a right to claim. It is probably akin to atypai, used by 
Homer (Iliad, bk. i. 21 , etc.) to denote reverence for 
the gods and for parents. It was evidently a nobler and 
purer word than tepo?. The difference arose from the 
fact that, owing to the degradation of idolatry, there 
were objects supposed to stand in close relation to 
the gods, which had no claim whatever to man’s real 
reverence. A very good instance of the distinction is 
quoted in Cremer’s valuable New Testament Lexicon, 
from Plutarch, Conviv. 5 . 682 , C: “ Amorous and un¬ 
tamed men are unable to abstain even from the most 
holy bodies; ” which Cremer properly contrasts with 
the “ sacred ” bodies of the “ sacred slaves,” in Strabo, 
bk. vi. 272 . 

Such being the associations of the words, the Seventy 
Translators, moved by a delicate appreciation of the 
difference between the gods of heathendom and the One 
God of Israel, rejected te/009, which was already occupied 
by conceptions partly impure, and chose ayios, which 
was in part unoccupied and in part occupied by a pure 
conception, namely reverence, to receive and bear to 
the nations of Europe the definite Old Testament 
conception of holiness. To represent the modifications 
of the Hebrew word, the Seventy thrust aside the exist¬ 
ing though rare derivatives of <£705, and derived directly 



io6 


HOLINESS 


[Part III 


from cvyio 5 a family of words of which every member 
was altogether new in Greek literature. 

It is worthy of note that in Judges xvi. 17, for the 
words “ Nazarite of God,” which the Alexandrian MS. 
reproduces, the Vatican MS. gives arym Oeov. And 
rightly so. For the Nazarite was holy. And this 
objective holiness, Samson’s deep sin could not 
obliterate. 

In the Apocrypha, the use of ary to? and its cognates 
corresponds exactly to its use in the Septuagint, i.e. to 
the use of the Hebrew word. The purely ritual use is 
found in Judith xi. 13 : “ The firstfruits of the corn, and 
the tithes of the wine and the oil, which they kept, 
having sanctified them for the priests who present them¬ 
selves before the face of our God.” So 1 Macc. x. 39: 
“for the holy things which are at Jerusalem, for the 
expenses suitable for the holy things.” Compare Sirach 
xlv. 4, “in his faith and meekness He sanctified (Moses), 
He chose him out from all flesh ; ” and v. 6, “ He exalted 
Aaron to be holy like him.” In v. 10, we have Aaron’s 
“holy robe.” So Sirach xlix. 12: “a people holy for 
the Lord, prepared for glory of eternity.” From the 
days of the week, God “exalted and sanctified the 
Sabbath : ” Sirach xxxiii. (xxxvi.) 9. God is “ the Holy 
One from heaven,” who redeemed Judah from the host 
of Sennacherib : Sirach xlviii. 20. In 2 Macc. viii. 23 
we read of “ the holy book.” In 2 Macc. v. 15, the word 
iepov appears, in the sense of sanctuary, “he dared to 
enter into the most holy (ayuoTaTov) sanctuary of all 
the earth.” This use was now safe: for the conception 



Lect. XII] 


IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 


107 


of holiness was already indissolubly linked to the word 
07^09. 

In the Apocrypha, as in the Septuagint Version, the 
word 07409 simply takes up the ideas associated with 
the Hebrew word; and passes them on unchanged, 
as an almost lifeless body, awaiting the new life soon 
to be breathed into it by a new and more glorious 
revelation. 



LECTURE XIII 


THE HOLINESS OF CHRIST 


HE writers of the New Testament perpetuate and 



J- develop the Old Testament conception of holiness. 
It was still remembered, as we read in Luke ii. 23, that God 
had commanded that every firstborn male “ shall be called, 
Holy to the Lord/’ The emphatic teaching of Exodus 
xxix. 37, etc., that “ whatever touches the altar shall be 
holy” is reproduced in Matt, xxiii. 17, 19, where Christ 
appeals in argument to the truth that already “ the temple 
has sanctified the gold ” used in its construction, and that 
day by day “ the altar sanctifies the gift ” laid upon it. 
(Note here the contrast of the tenses.) As in the Greek 
(Lxx.) version of Neh. xi. 1, so in Matt. iv. 5, xxvii. 53, 
Jerusalem is called “the holy city:” for it stood in 
special relation to God. The words of Stephen recorded 
in Acts viii. 33, “ the ground on which thou standest is 
holy ground,” prove that the opening words of the 
revelation to Moses (Exodus iii. 5) still lived in the 
memory of the people. In Matt. xxiv. 15, Acts vi. 13, 
xxi. 28, the temple is still called “ the holy place.” The 
word holy y used in Job v. I, xv. 15, Dan. viii. 13, to 
designate the angels, as persons who occupy a special 


Lect. XIII] 


THE HOLINESS OF CHRIST 


109 


relation to God and do His bidding, is applied to them 
as an epithet in Luke ix. 26, Acts x. 22. Similarly, 
though in lower degree, as in Jer. i. 5 so in Luke i. 70, 
Acts iii. 21, it is applied to the prophets. So Mark 
vi. 20, where we read that “ Herod feared John, knowing 
him to be a righteous and holy man : ” i.e. one whose 
conduct agreed with the Law and who stood in special 
relation to God. 

Very conspicuous, especially in the Third Gospel and 
the Book of Acts, is the term “ Holy Spirit,” already 
used in the Septuagint as a rendering of the phrase 
“ Spirit of Holiness” in Psalm li. 11, Isa. lxiii. 10. The 
Spirit of God claims the epithet as being in a very 
special manner the Source of an influence of which God 
is the one and only aim. All other influences tend away 
from God. He is, therefore, in a sense shared by no 
other inward motive principle, the Holy Spirit. 

The holiness of God, solemnly asserted in Lev. xi. 45, 
xix. 2, xx. 26, xxi. 8, and frequently in the Book of 
Isaiah under the title “ The Holy One of Israel,” is 
asserted or implied in John xvii. 11, Heb. xii. 10, I Pet. 
i. 15, 16 (from Lev. xi. 44), Rev. iv. 8 (a repetition of 
Isa. vi. 3), and Rev. vi. 10. It will be further discussed in 
Lect. XXXII. 

So far the conception of holiness has advanced little 
beyond the development attained in the Old Testament. 
The greater frequency of holiness as an attribute of the 
Spirit is, however, a mark of that better Covenant of 
which the indwelling and sanctifying presence of the 
Spirit is so conspicuous and glorious a feature. And 



IIO 


THE HOLINESS 


[Part III 


the similarity of the use of the word in the Old and the 
New Testaments is a proof how fully the Old Testament 
conception of holiness lived on in the minds of the 
people. 

In the life and character of the Incarnate Son of God 
we see the full development and realisation of the 
Biblical conception of holiness. Before His birth, as we 
read in Luke i. 3 5, He was announced by the angel as 
“ the Holy Thing: ” the neuter form leaving out of sight 
all except that He would be an embodiment of holiness. 
He was acknowledged, both (John vi. 69) by His 
disciples and (Mark i. 24) by evil spirits, to be “ the 
Holy One of God.” Himself declared, as recorded in 
John x. 36, xvii. 19, that the Father had sanctified Him 
and sent Him into the world, and that day by day He 
sanctifies Himself. The ascended Saviour is spoken of 
in Acts iii. 14, iv. 27, as “the Holy and Just One,” and 
“ the Holy Servant of God.” Paul teaches in Rom. i. 4 
that He “ was marked out as Son of God according to 
a Spirit of Holiness.” He is probably “ the Holy One in 
1 John ii. 20; and in Rev. iii. 7 He is called “ Holy and 
true.” 

Since Holiness is thus solemnly predicated of the Son 
of God, we expect to find in Him a fully developed 
impersonation of the idea imperfectly shadowed forth 
in the Mosaic ritual. We expect to find Him standing 
in a special relation to God, and living a life of which 
the one and only aim is to advance the purposes of God. 
Our expectation is fulfilled. The Son of God declared, 



Lect. XIII] 


OF CHRIST 


11 


as recorded in John iv. 34, "It is My meat to do the 
will of Him that sent Me and to complete His work 
in ch. v. 19, “ the Son cannot do anything of Himself, 
except what He sees the Father doing ; ” in v. 30, " I 
seek not My own will, but the will of Him that sent 
Me; ” in ch. vi. 38, " because I have come down from 
heaven, not in order that I may do My own will, but 
the will of Him that sent Me; ” and in ch. xvii. 4, " I 
have glorified Thee on the earth, having finished the 
work which Thou gavest Me to do.” Similarly, we read 
in Rom. vi. 10, “ the life which He lives, He lives for 
God ; ” in ch. xv. 3, “ Christ did not please Himself; ” 
in 1 Cor. iii. 23, " Ye are Christ’s and Christ is God’s;” 
in Heb. iii. 2 , “ being faithful to Him that made Him 
and in ch. ix. 14, " He offered Himself spotless to God.” 

In Jesus we see a life, lived in human flesh and blood, 
of which God was the one and only aim. All the 
powers, time, and opportunities of Jesus were used, not 
to gratify self, but to work out the Father’s purposes. 
And this devotion to the Father was rational. The 
human intelligence of the man Jesus, mysteriously in¬ 
formed by the Divine intelligence of the Eternal Son of 
God, comprehended and fully approved and appropriated 
the Father’s eternal purpose to save mankind through 
the death of His Son : and of this intelligent approval 
every word and act of the human life of Jesus was a 
perfect outworking. And in this sense, in a degree 
infinitely surpassing whatever had been known before, 
the incarnate Son of God was holy. Consequently, as 

we read in John il 21, Heb. x. 10, iii. 1, His body was a 

'5 



112 


THE HOLINESS 


[Part III 


“ temple ” and a “ sacrifice/’ and himself a “ High priest.” 
Whatever holiness belonged to the ritual and priesthood 
of the Old Covenant, belonged in infinitely higher degree 
to Him and to His life : whatever in them was imperfect 
found in Him its full realisation. 

We notice further that, under the Old Covenant, the 
holy men were separated by their holiness from the 
common work of common life. This was very con¬ 
spicuous in the last of the prophets, in that “ righteous and 
holy man ” (Mark vi. 20) in whose person and teaching 
was summed up whatever had been revealed under the 
earlier dispensation. The contrast of John and Jesus is 
the contrast of holiness as revealed in the Law, and as 
revealed in the Gospel. John lived in the wilderness, 
away from the dwellings of men, and ate strange food. 
Jesus lived a common life, toiling at a trade, enjoying 
social intercourse, partaking of human hospitality, and 
eating the food set before Him. This teaches plainly 
that holiness in its highest degree, i.e. the highest con¬ 
ceivable devotion to God and to the advancement of 
His kingdom, does not imply separation from the com¬ 
mon business of life. And when we see Jesus using the 
opportunities afforded Him by this common intercourse 
with men to advance the interests of the kingdom of 
God, we learn that even the common things of daily 
life may be laid on the altar of God as a means of doing 
His holy work. 

We saw that under the Old Covenant devotion to 
God implied separation from whatever, in symbol or 
reality, was opposed to God. Now, all sin is opposed 



Lect. XIII] 


OF CHRIST 


"3 


to God : for sin, in whatever form or degree, tends to 
misery and destruction, whereas God’s purpose is life 
and happiness. Consequently, the holiness of Jesus 
involves His absolute separation from all sin. So 
2 Cor. v. 21 : "who knew no sin.” 

Again, the only purpose of God which we can con¬ 
ceive as having a practical bearing on us is God’s 
purpose to save men from sin and death, and to set up 
the eternal kingdom of which Christ will be king and 
His people citizens. Consequently, to us, devotion to 
God implies devotion to this one purpose. And this 
one great divine purpose is inseparably linked with 
our conception of holiness. Therefore, since to realise 
this purpose God sent His Son into the world, our 
Lord spoke appropriately, as recorded in John x. 36, 
of Himself as “ Him whom the Father sanctified and 
sent into the world.” And, in reference to His own daily 
devotion of Himself to this enterprise, He said, as we 
read in John xvii. 19, “on their behalf I sanctify Myself 
in order that also they may be sanctified.” 

Thus, from the great Author and Archetype of renewed 
humanity, we have obtained a complete conception 
of holiness. We have seen a man, though God yet 
perfect Man, whose life was a constant and perfect 
realisation of one purpose, a purpose to use all His 
powers, time, and opportunities, to advance the kingdom 
of God: and we have seen that this purpose was a 
result of an intelligent comprehension, and full approval, 
of the Father’s purpose. In virtue of this intelligent, 
hearty, and continued appropriation of the Father’s 



THE HOLINESS OF CHRIST 


[Part III 


114 


purpose, and in virtue of its realisation in all the details 
of His own life on earth, the Incarnate Son was appro¬ 
priately called “ the Holy One of God.” 

In my earlier volume (Through Christ to God, Lectures 
XXIX. and XXXI.) I endeavoured to prove that the 
life of Christ on earth is a perfect and full outflow and 
manifestation, in human flesh and blood, of the nature of 
the eternal Son of God. The teaching of the New 
Testament implies, and with this agrees the historic 
faith of the Church of Christ, that with the Father, yet 
personally distinct from Him, is Another who shares, by 
eternal derivation from the Father, all the attributes of 
God. And we saw that the New Testament teaches that 
the divine life thus received flows back, with full volume, 
in unreserved devotion to the Father; the eternal Stream 
to its eternal Source. Of this eternal devotion of the 
Son to the Father, the lifelong consecration of Jesus 
Christ to the work of God was a human historic counter¬ 
part. And we have just seen that this self-consecration 
of Christ to God is a perfect realisation, in actual human 
life, of the holiness symbolically set forth in the ritual of 
the Old Covenant. 

Thus is the Biblical conception of holiness, set forth 
in jutlme in the Mosaic ritual and afterwards fully 
realised in the human life of Christ on earth, traced to 
*ts ultimate source in the eternal nature of God, to the 
sternal devotion of the Son to the Father. In the 
Lectures following we shall see that this eternal nature 
of God is, through the Incarnate Son, the eternal Arche¬ 
type of whatever is good in man. 



LECTURE XIV 

THE HOLINESS OF THE SERVANTS OF CHRIST 

I N Rom. i. 7, i Cor. i. 2, Eph. i. I, Phil. I. i, Gal. i. I, 
Paul addresses his readers as “ called to be saints," 
or “ called saints.” The latter rendering is better. For 
frequently elsewhere he speaks of them as actually 
saints. So Rom. viii. 27, “ the Spirit makes intercession 
on behalf of saints;” ch. xii. 13, “the necessities of 
the saints;” ch. xv. 25, “ ministering to the saints,” i.e. 
performing friendly service for them; v. 26, “ the poor 
ones of the saints in Jerusalem;” and v. 32, “accept¬ 
able to the saints.” In ch. xvi. 2, he asks for Phoebe 
a reception “ worthy of the saints.” The same use of 
the word is found in 1 Cor. vi. 1, xiv. 33, xvi. 1, 15, 
2 Cor. i. 1, viii. 4, ix. 1, 12, xiii. 13, and elsewhere 
frequently. Evidently, by the phrase in Rom. i. 7, etc., 
Paul means that just as he had himself received a 
summons from God which made him an apostle, “ a 
called apostle,” so his readers had received a divine 
summons which made them saints. So in 1 Cor. i. 2 he 
addresses them first as “ sanctified in Christ ” and then 
as “ called saints.” 

The same use of the word holy or saint as a designation 
*15 


ii6 


THE HOLINESS 


[Part III 


of Church members generally is found also in Heb. 
iii. i, “holy brethen; ” in ch. vi. io, “ministering to the 
saints ; ” in ch. xiii. 24, “ greet all the saints; ” and in 
Jude 3, “the faith committed to the saints.” So Acts 
ix. 13, “how many evil things he has done to Thy 
saints : ” v. 32, “ the saints inhabiting Lydda ; ” v. 41, 
“ the saints and the widows; ” ch. xxvi. 10, “ many of 
the saints.” The same word in the same sense is 
common in the Book of Revelation : so “ the prayers of 
the saints ” in chs. v. 8, viii. 3, 4; “ the blood of the 
saints,” and “ of saints and prophets ” in chs. xvii. 6, xvi. 6, 
xviii. 24 ; the “ faith ” and “ endurance of the saints ” in 
chs. xiii. 10, xiv. 12 ; and in ch. xx. 9, “ the camp of the 
saints;” also chs. xi. 18, xiii. 7. In all these places 
the word saint is evidently an ordinary designation of 
the professed servants of Christ. 

That this use of the word saint is not found in the 
Gospels, will excite no surprise. For not till the descent 
of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost did the sacred race begin 
to be. 

We now seek for the light which this use of the word 
holy or saint sheds upon the new life of the adopted sons 
of God. 

It is manifestly a new religious use of a word already 
very familiar in a religious sense. The Jews at Jerusalem 
had ever before their eyes the holy objects of the temple 
ritual. And those scattered in other lands heard read 
in their synagogues week by week the ancient Scriptures 
in which the word holy occurs very frequently to denote 
or describe persons and things, always in the same 



Lect. XIV] OF THE SERVANTS OF CHRIST 


117 

definite religious sense. This use and sense of the word 
are indisputably found in certain passages of the New 
Testament quoted at the beginning of the last Lecture. 
The earliest readers of the New Testament could not 
but give to the word when used to describe the servants of 
Christ a meaning derived from its ordinary and familiar 
use. Certainly the holy persons of the New Covenant 
must stand in close relation to those of the Old. 

A conspicuous difference between the two Covenants 
at once attracts attention. In the Old Covenant the 
word holy was reserved for the priests, as distinguished 
from other Israelites. In Num. xvi. 3, Korah complains 
that “ all the congregation are holy, every one of them ; 
and Jehovah is among them.” Moses replies, in v. 5, 
that “Jehovah will show who are His and who are 
holy, even him whom He will choose.” In v. 10, he 
explains these words as referring to “the priesthood.” 
So 2 Chron. xxiii. 6: “ Let none come into the house 
of Jehovah except the priests . . . they shall come in : for 
they are holiness. And all the people shall keep the 
watch of Jehovah.” This reservation of the word, which 
is maintained throughout most of the Old Testament, 
teaches that the priests stood in a special relation to 
God not shared by the rest of the nation. The usage of 
the New Testament, quoted above, teaches that all the 
servants of Christ stand in a special relation to God. It 
thus marks a distinction between the Old Covenant and 
the New. 

In Dan. vii. 18, 22, 25, 27, the people of God, to whom 
is to be given the everlasting kingdom, are called “ the 



ii8 


THE HOLINESS 


[Part III 


saints of the Most High.” This prophecy receives a 
partial and preliminary fulfilment in the New Testament 
use of the word saint as a designation of the servants of 
Christ. 

The title saint or holy one is in the New Testament 
given to church-members generally, however immature 
their actual Christian life. The Corinthian Christians 
are in I Cor. i. 2 addressed as “ sanctified in Christ Jesus, 
called saints,” although in ch. iii. I they are said to be 
“ not spiritual but carnal, babes in Christ.” This use of 
the word, which differs very much from its use in 
popular modern religious phraseology, is explained by 
the use of the same word in the Old Testament. What¬ 
ever their actual conduct and character might be, the 
priests were, as men whom God had claimed for Himself 
and who were therefore bound to devote themselves 
wholly to His service, objectively holy . For God’s claim 
put them in a new position of obligation, an obligation not 
set aside by, although it greatly aggravated the guilt of, 
their unfaithfulness. Just so, God claims for Himself 
all those whom He receives as His adopted sons. And, 
whatever they may do, His claim puts them in a new 
and very solemn position. The word saint is therefore 
very appropriate as a designation of the followers of 
Christ: for it declares what God requires them to be. 
To admit sin or selfishness into their hearts is sacrilege. 
Nay more. It also points out their privilege. By calling 
His people saints , God declares His will that we live a 
life of which He is the one and only aim. Therefore, 
since our own efforts have proved that such a life is 



Lect. XIV] OF THE SERVANTS OF CHRIST 115 

utterly beyond our power, we may take back to God the 
name He gives us, and claim that it be realised by His 
power in our heart and life. To keep these all- 
important truths ever before the mind of believers, the 
Holy Spirit moved the early Christians to speak of 
themselves as saints , as holy men. This is the objective 
holiness of the Church of Christ. 

But, although, as claimed by God, all the children of 
God are holy, it is evident that the full idea of holiness 
is realised in them only so far as they yield to God the 
devotion He claims. To bear the name of saint and 
yet be animated, in part, by a worldly spirit, is evidently 
a contradiction in terms. Consequently, in a few pas¬ 
sages, the word holy denotes actual and absolute 
devotion to God. And holiness is set before the people 
of God as a standard for their attainment. So I Cor. 
vii. 34, “ that she may be holy both in body and spirit," 
parallel with, “ how she may please the Lord ; ” Eph. i. 4, 
“ that we may be holy and blameless; ” ch. v. 27 ; Col. 
i. 22 ; 1 Thess. v. 23, “ may the God of peace sanctify 
you ;” Heb. xii. 14, “follow after holiness;” 1 Peteri. 151 
“ be yourselves holy in all behaviour.” In these passages 
the word holy denotes a realisation in man of God's 
purpose that he live a life of which God is the one and 
only aim. In other words, that man is holy who 
looks upon himself and all his possessions as belonging 
to God, and uses all his time, powers, and opportunities 
to work out the purposes of God, i.e. to advance the 
kingdom of Christ. This is the subjective holiness to 
which God calls His people. 



120 


THE HOLINESS 


[Part III 


It will, I think, be found that, where the servants of 
Christ are spoken of as actually holy , the word is used 
objectively as noting what God claims them to be; but 
that, where it is used in a subjective sense for actual 
and unreserved devotion to God, holiness is represented 
as an aim to be pursued. Even the worldly-minded 
Corinthians were said to be already “sanctified in Christ;” 
whereas for the Thessalonicans, with whom Paul finds 
no fault, he prays, in I Thess. v. 23, that “God may 
sanctify” them and thus bring them to completeness 
and maturity. The apparent contradiction is explained 
by the different uses, objective and subjective, of the 
same word. 

The subjective use of the word holy is illustrated 
by the abundant teaching of the New Testament that 
the ideal life which Christ died to realise in His 
people is a life in which all our powers are put forth 
to advance the purposes of God. So Rom. vi. 11, 
“ reckon yourselves to be living for God in Christ 
Jesus;” v. 19, “present the members of your body, 
as servants, to righteousness, for sanctification; ” ch. 
xiv. 7, “ none of us lives for himself; for, if we live, 
we live for the Lord;” 2 Cor. v. 15, “He died that 
they who live may live no longer for themselves but 
for Him who on their behalf died and rose; ” 1 Cor. 
vi. 19, iii. 23, “ye are not your own,” but “Christ’s.” 
The life here described is a life of holiness. 

Since holiness is God’s claim to the service of His 
creatures, the word is predicated of both spirit and 
body : so 1 Cor. vii. 34, Rom. xii. 1, 1 Thess. v. 23. 



Lect. XIV] OF THE SERVANTS OF CHRIST 


121 


For God claims even our body, that its powers may 
work out His purposes. 

Since holiness as set forth in the Mosaic ritual 
was a prophetic outline of the holiness required in us, 
the various holy objects of that ritual were types, as 
of Christ, so also of His followers. We are a “ temple/* 
I Cor. iii. 16, vi. 19; a “priesthood,” 1 Peter ii. 5, 9; 
a “sacrifice,” Rom. xiL 1. Our future life will be 
a “ Sabbath-keeping,” Heb. iv. 9. We also notice that 
in the New Testament the word sanctify occurs most 
frequently in that portion of it which deals most fully 
with the Mosaic ritual, the Epistle to the Hebrews. 
This suggests that in the Apostolic Church the word 
had not shaken off, as to a large extent it has now, 
its original connection with that ritual. To this 
original reference of the word we must ever recur if 
we wish to think of holiness as it was understood by 
the early Christians. 

Very interesting is 1 Cor. vii. 14 : “ the unbelieving 
husband is sanctified in the wife.” Since the people 
of God are holy, it might be thought that, as taught 
in Ezra ix. 2, “ the seed of holiness ” ought to separate 
itself from contact with the unholy. Paul says, No. 
The Christian wife, in virtue of the universal priest¬ 
hood of believers, lays her husband upon the altar of 
God, and in all her treatment of him seeks to advance 
the purposes of God. Therefore, in the subjective 
world of the wife’s inner life, the husband, unbeliever 
though he be, is a holy object, and the wife’s intercourse 
with him is a service of God. Paul proves the correct- 




122 


THE HOLINESS 


[Part III 


ness of this view by showing that if the principle of 
separation from the unbelieving were accepted it would 
in some cases compel the Christian mother to forsake 
her children, who evidently, in spite even of their 
possible rejection of Christianity, had a claim upon 
their mother’s care. Whereas, he says, on the principle 
that to the Christian wife the heathen husband is a 
sacred object, the children also are sacred and there¬ 
fore fit objects of a Christian mother’s care. And if 
it be right for her to live with her children, some 
of whom may be adult idolaters, on the same principle 
it is right for her to live with her husband. Thus, 
from the case of the children, Paul proves the case 
of the husband. 

Equally interesting is I Tim. iv. 4 : “ Every creature 
of God is good, and nothing is to be cast away, when 
received with thanksgiving: for it is sanctified through 
the Word of God and prayer.” The “Word of God” 
is the voice of God (Gen. i. 29, ix. 3) by which God 
devoted vegetables and animals to be food for His 
rational creatures. This universal word was for a time 
restricted by the Law, which declared that only certain 
specified animals were holy: but the restriction had 
been solemnly revoked (Acts x. 15), and the original 
word was again in force. Thus, by the Word of God, 
all manner of food was consecrated for the use of the 
sacred people. The general word “prayer” includes 
the “ thanksgiving ” of v. 4. Our thanks to God is 
the testimony of our conscience that we believe our 
food to be His gift to us ; and is therefore a proof 



Lect. XIV] OF THE SERVANTS OF CHRIST 


123 


that we eat it for the Lord. “ He eats for the Lord , 
for he gives thanks to God : ” Rom. xiv. 6. Con¬ 
sequently, whatever food we eat with genuine thanks¬ 
giving, is, by God’s original word, and by our thanks, 
which is a recognition of that original word, made 
holy food suitable for the holy people. But the same 
food, if eaten without this intelligent recognition of 
it as God’s gift, would, in spite of its objective 
sanctification by God’s original word, be unholy and 
defiling: see Rom. xiv. 14. 

We have now, by study of the Old and New Testa¬ 
ments, obtained a clear conception of holiness as under¬ 
stood by the writers of the Bible. The adjective holy 
describes in the Old Testament various objects which 
God claimed to be specially His own : the verb sanctify 
denotes the action of God in reserving them for Himself, 
and the action of man in devoting them to His service. 
In the New Testament, the word holy is a frequent title 
of church-members generally, thus teaching that God 
claims for Himself and His service all those whom He 
receives as His children in Christ. It is used occasion¬ 
ally to describe the new life He would have them live. 
That this is a life of unreserved loyalty to God, we learn 
from other teaching of the New Testament. And that this 
is the meaning of the word holy when used to describe 
the new life in Christ, is proved by its use throughout 
the Bible. The holiness of God and of the Spirit of God 
will be discussed in Lectures XXXII. and XXXIV. 

The central idea of holiness is devotion to God. This 
idea was embodied in the sacred things and persons and 



124 


THE HOLINESS 


[Part III 


times of the Old Covenant: for God had claimed them 
to be specially His own. It assumed an infinitely loftier 
embodiment in the Incarnate Son who took upon Him 
our flesh, lived a human life on earth, and now lives a 
glorified human life upon the throne of God, with a 
single aim to accomplish the purposes of God. The 
same idea is in part embodied in all the adopted children 
of God. For God has claimed them to be His own : and 
His claim puts them, whatever they may do, in a new 
and solemn position. But the complete idea of holiness 
is realised in them only so far as their entire activity of 
body and mind are the out-working of a single purpose 
to accomplish the purposes of God. 

It has been well said that Purpose is the autograph 
of Mind. Wherever purpose is, there is mind. And 
wherever mind is directed towards the Great Source of 
Mind, there is Holiness. 

Hitherto, we have sought, by study of the Mosaic 
ritual, to understand the holiness which Christ came to 
realise in His people. This process may be profitably 
reversed. The holiness proclaimed by Christ explains, 
and is the only conceivable explanation of, a great part 
of the Mosaic ritual. It has frequently been observed 
that the only explanation of the Mosaic sacrifices, and 
of the prominence given to blood in the Mosaic ritual, 
is the doctrine that in later ages Christ came to save 
mankind by His own death; and that apart from the 
death of Christ the Old Testament sacrifices are 
meaningless and therefore unaccountable. It is equally 





Lect. XIV] OF THE SERVANTS OF CHRIST 


125 


true that the prominence given in the Old Covenant to 
ceremonial holiness receives its only explanation from 
the holiness taught by Christ In order to teach men, 
in the only way they could understand, that God bids 
them to look upon themselves as belonging to Him, and 
to use all their powers and time to work out His purposes, 
God set apart for Himself, in outward and visible and 
symbolic form, a certain place, and certain men, things, 
and periods of time. Afterwards, when in this way men 
had become familiar with the idea of holiness, God pro¬ 
claimed in Christ that this idea must be realised in every 
man and place and thing and time. Thus, in the Biblical 
conception of holiness, we have an explanation of a 
marked and otherwise inexplicable feature of the Old 
Covenant; we have a link binding the Covenants to¬ 
gether ; and a light which each Covenant reflects back 
on the other. 

In this Lecture we have seen the abiding practical 
worth of the Levitical Ritual, as a symbol of the New 
Life in Christ. To this abiding value, abundant witness 
is borne in Christian literature, and especially in 
Christian psalmody. In all ages and countries Christian 
thought has found appropriate expression in the phraseo¬ 
logy of the ancient ritual. This spiritual benefit of the 
symbolic teaching of the Old Covenant, of symbols 
which have now altogether passed away, reveals their 
divine origin, and thus renders important confirmation 
to the historical narratives which trace them to 
commands given by God to ancient Israel. Of this 
manifold and far-reaching benefit, the writers of the 



126 HOLINESS OF THE SERVANTS OF CHRIST [Part III 


Old Testament seem to have been themselves almost 
unconscious. And their unconsciousness ot the real 
significance of that which they carefully describe, and 
which without their description would have been unknown 
to us, indicates clearly a Hand unseen guiding their 
hands, or at least attests the divine origin of that which 
they describe. That in this remarkable manner the Old 
Covenant prepares a way for the New, proves that it 
came from Him who in later days sent His Son to 
announce the salvation dimly foreshadowed in the 
ancient symbols. This confirmation, however, extends 
only to the broad principles underlying the ritual, not 
to all its details; and it sheds little light on the 
authorship or age of the documents from which we 
derive our knowledge of the ritual. But it affords 
important evidence touching the historical truth of 
these documents. 



LECTURE XV 

THE NEW LIFE OF DEVOTION TO CHRIST 


W E shall now trace the practical bearing of the 
teaching expounded in Lect XIV. upon the 
inward and outward life of the servants of Christ. 

Already (Through Christ to God, p. 253) we have 
seen that the eternal Son lives a life of unreserved 
devotion to the Father, a life in which all the infinite 
powers derived by the Son from the Father are put 
forth for the accomplishment of the Father’s purposes. 
In the incarnate Son, this unreserved devotion to the 
Father assumed visible human form in the consecration, 
to God and to the salvation of men, of all the human 
powers assumed by the Son at His entrance into human 
life. In Him we see a pure human life, lived under 
the conditions imposed by flesh and blood, amid human 
weakness and surrounded by bad and hostile men and 
under the fierce attack of spiritual foes; a life of 
unswerving loyalty to God and to the great purpose 
for which He sent His Son into the world ; a created 
human life in full harmony with the divine life of the 
eternal Son. The one definite aim of God in sending 
His Son, and of every thought, word, and act of the 


128 


THE NEW LIFE 


[Part III 


Son’s life on earth, was to rescue men from sin and to 
build up the eternal Kingdom of God. This one aim, 
unwaveringly pursued by the incarnate Son, gave to 
human life a unity and dignity and power unknown 
before and otherwise inconceivable. 

Already (Through Christ to God , p. 49) we have seen 
that Christianity has saved the world from the ruin 
into which in Christ’s day it was sinking, and has 
inaugurated a new era of human history marked by 
sustained progress. And we saw that the beneficial 
results of Christianity were due to the personality of 
its Founder. In other words, all that is noblest and 
best in modern life is due to the short life of a Syrian 
artisan who was prematurely laid in His grave nearly 
nineteen centuries ago. Thus the human life which 
was ideally the noblest has been infinitely the most 
fruitful in blessing to mankind. That life is the 
divinely-given pattern of all human life. 

The use of the word holy in the New Testament 
implies, as we have seen in Lect. XIV., that Christ 
claims from His servants a devotion to Himself and to 
the kingdom He came to establish similar to His own 
devotion to God. He claims that we use all our 
powers of body and mind, all the resources at our 
disposal, and all the opportunities which life affords, 
to save men from sin, to bring them to bow to Christ, 
to enrol them as citizens of the Kingdom of God, 
and to help them to serve Christ; and that we do all 
this for His sake. In other words, He claims that all 
our purposes be subordinate to His one great purpose, 



Lect. XV] 


OF DEVOTION TO CHRIST 


129 


intelligently and earnestly embraced and appropriated 
by us. This is the New Life in Christ, the purpose of 
God touching His adopted sons. 

This life of unreserved devotion to Christ is the 
noblest life possible to man. For it sets before us an 
aim, the best possible aim, one which every one can 
pursue at all times amid all the various and varying 
circumstances of life, one in pursuit of which he can use 
all his powers, and one which everyone can attain. 
Nowall human effort receives its worth from the object 
aimed at. No act is trifling which tends to realise some 
great purpose : whereas the greatest effort which aims at 
nothing beyond itself is valueless. An aim persever- 
ingly pursued gives to life unity, force, and grandeur. 
This has sometimes been the case to some extent even 
when the aim has been unworthy. Life has then been a 
ruin ; but in some cases a splendid ruin. Now all self- 
chosen aims must needs be earthly and selfish, and 
therefore unworthy. For the stream cannot rise above 
its source. Therefore, God, in order to ennoble even the 
humblest of His children, has given Himself and His 
own purpose of mercy in Christ to be their single aim ; 
in order that thus, by directing their efforts towards the 
accomplishment of a purpose chosen by divine wisdom 
and love, they may themselves rise daily towards God. 

The aim which Christ sets before us commends itself 
to us at once as worthy of our highest effort and of any 
sacrifice it may involve. For His purpose is the rescue 
of the perishing, the highest well-being of every man, 
and the establishment of the eternal and glorious 



13° 


THE NEW LIFE 


[Part III 


Kingdom of God. Christ’s own consecration to this 
purpose at once claimed our profound homage. He 
now bids us make His purpose our own : and this 
purpose, embraced by us, satisfies us as being worthy of 
our most strenuous and sustained effort. 

From the above it is evident that a life of unreserved 
loyalty to Christ is a life of loyalty to the highest 
interests of men. By our own submission to Christ, by 
exalting Him in the eyes of others, by leading others to 
bow to Him, we are doing the most we can for the good 
of our race. 

Devotion to Christ stimulates every kind of human 
excellence, and in the highest degree. For the work of 
Christ demands the exercise of all our powers. It 
stimulates intellectual effort to know all we can about 
God and Christ and the Gospel of Christ, in order that 
we may lead others through Christ to God. It thus 
gives to human intelligence its noblest aim ; and guards 
intellectual success from the perils which surround it. 
It gives a worthy motive for the care and development 
of the body : for it shows that the powers even of our 
perishing body may work out eternal results. And it 
gives the only pure motive, and a very strong motive, 
for effort after material good : for it teaches that this 
world’s wealth may be a means both of doing spiritual 
good to others and of laying up for ourselves treasure 
in heaven. In various ways it calls into exercise, for 
the advancement of the Kingdom of God, and thus 
quickens and develops and elevates, all our powers, 
bodily, intellectual, and moral. 



Lect. XV] 


OF DEVOTION TO CHRIST 


* 3 * 


This life of loyalty to Christ, and it only, is strictly 
in harmony with God’s creative purpose for His in¬ 
telligent creatures. For it puts into active exercise 
various powers designed to be thus exercised and capable 
of their highest well-being only by exercise. It sets 
them to work for an object which commands the full 
approval of our intelligence. That which is by nature 
highest, the mind, actually rules : and that which is by 
nature lower, the body, attains its goal by acting under 
the direction of that which is nobler than itself. Con¬ 
sequently, in him who lives for Christ, there is perfect 
harmony, and perfect peace, combined with highest 
activity. 

This ideal life is practicable, in the highest degree, to 
all persons in all positions in life. The man who has 
fewest powers may use them all for the advancement of 
the Kingdom of God. And the man whose circum¬ 
stances are most adverse may yet make it his single aim 
to do all he can to accomplish the purposes of God. 
And, if so, even adversity will show forth the glory, and 
thus help forward the work, of Him whose grace is ever 
sufficient. That unreserved devotion to Christ is possible 
to all men always, is a strong presumption that the 
teaching which claims it is from God. 

This presumption is confirmed by the fact that de¬ 
votion to Christ is not only possible in, but fits a man 
for, eveiy position in life. By making men right with 
God, it makes them right one with another. For we 
have seen that the man who accepts as his own the 
purposes of God will seek to do all possible good to all 



I 3 2 


THE NEW LIFE 


[Part III 


within his reach. He will therefore be a good father, 
a good citizen, a good neighbour, and a tradesman 
pleasant and profitable to deal with. 

In Lect. XXI. we shall find that unreserved de¬ 
votion to Christ saves us from bondage to the world 
around, by placing us in complete harmony with our 
environment; that even the dark things of life are 
helpers affording us opportunities and aid in serving 
God. Thus loyalty to Christ gives to us a peace 
passing understanding; and makes us in some sense 
sharers of His throne. 

Another important element of the New Life in Christ 
now demands attention. Whole-hearted loyalty is 
possible to us only for such as we love supremely. All 
other service is more or less compulsory, and con¬ 
sequently imperfect. We therefore wonder not that 
He who claims the unreserved devotion of all His 
intelligent creatures claims also their love. So, very 
conspicuously, in Deut. vi. 4, 5 : “ Hear, O Israel, Jehovah 
our God is one Jehovah. And thou shalt love Jehovah 
thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and 
with all thy strength.” Here the oneness of God is 
made the ground of a claim to His people’s whole¬ 
hearted love. To this command our Lord pays honour, 
as recorded in Matt. xxii. 38, by quoting it as “ the great 
and first commandment.” And, throughout the New 
Testament, love to God and to Christ is the mainspring 
of the Christian life. 

In Christ we see God using means to evoke in His 
servants the love which He claims. The means used 



Leci\ XV] 


OF DEVOTION TO CHRIST 


133 


is the infinite love of God to man manifested in the 
mission and death of Christ to save man. So, with 
emphatic repetition, 1 John iv. 9, 10: “In this was 

manifested the love of God about us, that God sent 

His only-begotten Son into the world in order that 
we may live through Him. Herein is love : not that 
we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His 
Son to be a propitiation for our sins.” And Rom. 
v. 8: “A proof of His own love to us God gives, 

that, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” 

This love of God is equally the love of Christ. So Gal. 
ii. 20: “ who loved me, and gave up Himself for me.” 
The love thus historically manifested eighteen centuries 
ago is inwardly revealed to each individual day by day 
by the Holy Spirit given to the adopted sons of God. 
So Rom. v. 5 : “ The love of God is poured out in 
our hearts by the Holy Spirit given to us.” And the 
love of God, which is the essence of God, thus mani¬ 
fested in Christ and revealed by the Holy Spirit, 
becomes the new mental environment of the children 
of God. So I John iv. 16: “We have known and 
believed the love which God has about us. God is 
Love : and he that abides in love abides in God, and 
God in him.” 

This love of God and of Christ to man, thus mani¬ 
fested and revealed, melts even man’s hard heart into 
love to God. For love tends ever to evoke response in 
the object loved. Indeed, of this love of God to man, 
all love of man to God and all Christian love of man 
to man is a reflection. “We love; because He first 



*34 


THE NEW LIFE 


[Part III 


loved us : ” I John. iv. 19. And this love to God and 
to Christ is an essential element of the new life in 
Christ. “To those who love God all things work 
together for good : ” Rom. viii. 28. But, “ if anyone 
love not the Lord, let him be anathema:” 1 Cor. 
xvi. 21. Thus, as we shall see still more clearly in 
Lect. XVI., He who of old bade His people to love 
God with all their heart works in them now obedience 
to His own command by revealing in Christ and by 
the Holy Spirit His own infinite love to them. 

The wonderful effect of the love of God manifested 
in Christ, we may trace a step further. The love of 
God is love to all mankind. And they who under the 
influence of that love have learned to love God cannot 
but love those for whom He gave His Son to die. 
“ This commandment have we from Him, that he 
who loves God love his brother also:” 1 John iv. 21. 
Thus is fulfilled (Matt. xxii. 39, quoted from Lev. 
xix. 18) not only the first great commandment, but 
“a second like to it: Thou shalt love thy neighbour 
as thyself.” 

Between love to God and love to our fellows is, 
however, an important difference. We love God 
because He is in Himself infinitely worthy of our 
love. But many of our neighbours whom we are 
bidden to love are repulsive and hostile. We love 
them in Christ and for Christ’s sake. And in Christ 
they become objects worthy of our love. For in His 
great sacrifice on their behalf we learn the essential 
worth of manhood, a worth which sin cannot wholly 



Lect. XV] 


OF DEVOTION TO CHRIST 


135 


efface. Deeply fallen as some men are, they are 
capable of salvation, and are worth saving. This 
inherent worth of lost humanity has been felt by 
thousands of the servants of God who have spent 
lives of hardship and peril to rescue the vilest and 
worst, and have found an abundant recompense in 
the salvation of those for whom Christ died. 

We have already learnt that God claims, for His 
great purpose of saving men from sin and building 
up out of the ruins of lost humanity the eternal 
Kingdom of God, the unreserved devotion of all His 
people. And we have now seen that this claim 
comes to us from One who so loved us that He laid 
down His life to save us and to save the world. A 
claim supported by such love and such self-sacrifice 
we cannot resist. Henceforth our love to Christ 
assumes the form of devotion to the cause for which 
He died. And in the light of His great sacrifice any 
peril or hardship endured by His servants sinks into 
insignificance. They rejoice to lay themselves and all 
they have upon the altar consecrated by His blood. 
Thus His yoke, be it what it may, becomes pleasant 
and His burden light. 

This influence of the love manifested on the cross of 
Christ, prompting devotion to the work of saving men 
and making it joyous, finds expression in 2 Cor. v. 13-17, 
where Paul is unveiling the inner motives of his lifelong 
devotion to the work of God. “ If,” as some suggest, 
“ we have gone out of our mind, it is for God,” i.e. to do 
His work. “ If,” as others say, “ we are of sound mind,” 



36 


THE NEW LIFE 


[Part III 


i.e. men who know well what they are doing, we use our 
intelligence “ for you/’ i.e. to do you good. This devo¬ 
tion to God and to the good of men is explained by the 
manifested “ love of Christ ” which “ holds ” them “ fast ” 
and leaves them no other course open. This compulsory 
influence of the love of Christ results from Paul’s judg¬ 
ment about the purpose of His death, viz. “ that He died 
for all, in order that they who live may live, no longer 
for themselves, but for Him.” This manifested love, 
with this definite purpose, Paul cannot resist; and there¬ 
fore makes this purpose of Christ to be the guiding and 
all-controlling purpose of his own life. This divine 
purpose, thus embraced, completely changes both Paul 
and his environment. “The old things have passed 
away ; behold they have become new.” 

Thus in Christ and in His death on the cross God 
not only claims for Himself and for His Kingdom the 
unreserved devotion of all His servants, but gives them 
the strongest conceivable motive for whole-hearted and 
joyful surrender of that which He claims. 

From the above it is evident that the New Life is one 
of ceaseless activity. For the needs of the perishing 
around us and the opportunities afforded us of doing 
something to save them permit, to those who have 
caught the compassion of Christ, no rest except such as 
is needful for more effective work. Thus the service of 
Christ involves toil and weariness ; and the difficulty of 
the work involves sometimes hardship and peril and 
suffering. But it sets before us an aim worthy of any 
sacrifice. And personal self-denial for a worthy object 



Lect. XV] 


OF DEVOTION TO CHRIST 


137 


ever ennobles. Thus while apparently living for others, 
the servants of Christ attain their own highest good. 

This life of active devotion to Christ and to His work 
is the normal condition of intelligent creatures and their 
normal relation to their Creator. He is the beginning ; 
and He claims to be the end. He made us for activity ; 
and in activity we find our highest well-being. And, of 
this normal relation of the creature to the Creator, an 
eternal Archetype exists in the Godhead. For the 
divine life and infinite powers derived by the Son from 
the Father flow back to Him in absolute and ceaseless 
devotion. This divine Archetype found a full human 
counterpart in the incarnate Son. And only so far as 
it is reproduced in us do we attain our highest well¬ 
being. Thus the new life in Christ restores each one to 
his normal condition and to right relation to God. 

The New Life also restores each one to right relation 
to his fellows. Man was created not only to serve God 
but to help his brother man. Various powers have been 
allotted to various members of the race in order that 
each may use them for the general good, so that the 
endowment of each may become an enrichment to all. 
The mutual dependence of each upon others reveals the 
Creator’s purpose that each should help the others. 
Thus the race to some extent is, and to the fullest extent 
is designed to be, one organic whole. And only so far 
as this unity is realised in mutual co-operation can our 
race attain its destined well-being. 

This divinely-ordained harmony, sin disturbed. When 
man threw off the yoke of God, he fell a victim to his 



*38 


THE NEW LIFE 


[Part III 


own selfishness. This set man against man, and thus 
broke up the race into antagonistic fragments. The 
harmony thus lost, God restores by setting before all 
His servants one definite aim in which all have a 
common interest, viz. the Kingdom of God ; and thus 
drawing men not only to Himself but to harmonious 
co-operation with their fellows. It is as though the 
planets had broken away from the central attraction of 
the sun, and each pursuing its own path had come into 
collision with others, causing everywhere confusion and 
ruin. Into the midst of that ruin came the Son of 
God in order that by drawing to Himself the wandering 
stars He might become Himself the Centre of a restored 
moral universe. Thus by rescuing individuals from sin, 
by joining them to Himself and to their fellows, is Christ 
the Saviour of the world. He regenerates society by 
inspiring each member with loyalty to Himself in His 
purpose of universal blessing, and thus with loyalty to 
the highest interests of the whole community. 

This life of unreserved devotion to God in the service 
of Christ is a new and conspicuous feature of the Gospel 
of Christ. Before His day, men had recognised, especi¬ 
ally in Greece and still more in Rome, that the interests 
of the individual were bound up in the interests of the 
community. And recognition of this truth raised 
patriotism into a sacred duty. Loyalty to God was 
enjoined by the religious teachers of ancient Israel. And 
many religions have demanded from their votaries costly 
sacrifices to be laid on the altars of their gods. Yet not 
until Christ came was there set before each of the 



Lfct. XV] 


OF DEVOTION TO CHRIST 


*39 


servants of God one definite work, viz. to save and bless 
all within our reach by leading them to bow to Him 
who justly claims their devotion, a work within the 
capacity of the humblest yet demanding the full conse¬ 
cration of the most richly endowed, a work worthy of 
and abundantly recompensing the greatest sacrifices 
and ennobling everyone engaged in it. This lofty con¬ 
ception, affording a new standard of duty and of human 
excellence, we have traced by conclusive documentary 
evidence to Jesus of Nazareth. 

To this life of devotion to God in Christ, Paul 
summons his readers. In Rom. vi. 13 he bids them 
“ Present yourselves to God, as if living from the dead, 
and the members of your bodies, as weapons of righte¬ 
ousness, to God.” To this exhortation he adds emphasis 
by repeating it in v. 19 ; and again, at the close of his 
exposition of the Gospel, in ch. xii. I, " Present your 
bodies a living sacrifice . . . your rational service.” 
This last passage represents this life of devotion as a 
priestly ritual, the Christian counterpart of the daily 
sacrifice laid on the brazen altar. To present ourselves 
and our bodies to God can be no other than to resolve 
henceforth to use our powers in His service. The Greek 
aorist tense used in all three passages represents this 
consecration as a definite spiritual act, a definite entrance 
into a new life of unreserved devotion to God. 

How this definite self-surrender can be worked out in 
actual life, we shall now inquire; 



LECTURE XVI 

THE NEW LIFE IN THE SPIRIT OF GOD 


E have already learnt that Christ claims that we 



live a life in which all our powers are ever put 


forth to advance His Kingdom ; and that only so far as 
this aim is maintained in us and is worked out into the 
details of our life do we attain our highest well-being. 
We saw also that by making this claim Christ set before 
us a new and loftier ideal of human excellence, a new and 
higher law. The realisation of this ideal in themselves 
is the task set before the servants of Christ. We ask 
how it may be achieved. 

Evidently the first step towards, and the abiding con¬ 
dition of, this life of loyalty to Christ is a resolute 
purpose to devote ourselves without reserve to His 
service. This purpose involves a surrender of all other 
purposes except so far as they can be and are sub¬ 
ordinated to this one great purpose ; and an acceptance 
of a path in life marked out not by our own choice but 
by the will of Another. This initial and continued self¬ 
surrender is the costly sacrifice which Christ demands: 
it is the costliest sacrifice which man can lay upon the 
altar of God. It is self-consecration to the great work 


Lect. XVI] THE NEW LIFE IN THE SPIRIT OF GOD 141 


of which Christ says, in John xvii. 19, “ on their behalf I 
sanctify Myself in order that also they may be sanctified 
in the truth.” 

Strange to say, an immediate result of this deliberate 
resolve is a painful discovery of our inability to ac¬ 
complish or even to maintain it In proportion to our 
earnestness, we become conscious of a hostile force 
within us hindering the accomplishment of our purpose 
and even more or less dethroning the purpose itself. 
While recognising with increasing clearness the breadth 
and the justice of Christ’s claim, and with a desire more 
or less constant to yield what He so justly claims, we 
find ourselves unable to fulfil our own resolve. This felt 
inability becomes to us an intolerable bondage and con¬ 
demnation. Henceforth for us there is no real peace 
until we yield to Christ the devotion He claims. For 
deliverance from this bondage, and for a realisation in 
ourselves of this new life of loyalty to Christ, we turn 
again, as when seeking pardon for past sins, to the 
Gospel of Christ 

Our inability to live for Christ by any moral strength 
of our own proves at once that devotion to Christ is 
possible to us only as a gift and work of Him who gave 
His Son to rescue man from sin. And, that the new life 
in Christ is a work of God in us is plainly taught by Paul. 
So Phil. i. 6, “ He who has begun in you a good work 
will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ;” and 
ch. ii. 12,13,“work out your own salvation : for it is God 
who works in you both to will and to work, on behalf of 
His good pleasure,” i.e. in order to accomplish what 



142 


THE NEW LIFE 


[Part III 


seems good to Himself. The same is taught in the 
passages which speak of the new life as a work of the 
creative power of God. So 2 Cor. v. 17, “if anyone be 
in Christ, he is a new creature ; ” Gal. vi. 15, “ in Christ 
Jesus, neither circumcision is anything nor uncircum¬ 
cision but a new creature.” For a new creation implies 
a fresh putting forth of the creative power of God. In 
Eph. i. 19, 20, the surpassing power of God put forth in 
those who believe is compared to the power which raised 
Christ from the dead and to heaven. Consequently, as 
we read in ch. ii. 10, “we are His work, created in 
Christ Jesus ; ” and, in ch. iv. 24, we read of “ the new 
man which, in harmony with God, has been created in 
righteousness and purity of the truth.” 

We are not surprised to find that of this good work 
and new creation the Holy Spirit is the Agent. For 
whatever God does in man, He does through the agency 
of the Spirit. Just as we read in Gen. ii. 7 that God 
breathed into a human form the “ breath of life and 
man became a living soul,” so Paul teaches that to all 
who believe the Gospel God gives His Spirit, which is 
also the Spirit of Christ, to be in them the animating 
principle of a new life like that of Christ. In Gal. iii. 2, 3, 
he assumes that his readers have received the Spirit, 
and says in vv. 13, 14 that “ Christ bought us off from 
the curse of the law ... in order that we may receive 
the promise of the Spirit.” In ch. v. 16 (cp. v. 25) 
he urges to “walk by the Spirit;” he speaks in v. 18 
of those who are “ led by the Spirit; ” and in v. 22 
describes all moral excellence as a “ fruit of the Spirit” 



Lect. XVI] 


IN THE SPIRIT OF GOD 


143 


In Rom. viii. 2, he asserts that “ the law of the Spirit of 
life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of 
sin and death ; ” evidently meaning that the Holy Spirit, 
given to all who are in Christ, imposes His will as a rule 
of life and thus rescues them from bondage to the evil 
rule imposed by sin. Consequently, as we read in v. 4, 
they “ walk according to the Spirit: ” t.e. the will of the 
Spirit is the standard by which they choose their steps.” 
On the other hand, if anyone has not the Spirit of Christ, 
this man is not His:” v. 9. And this indwelling of the 
Spirit is “ Christ in you: 99 v. 10. By the help of the 
Spirit, the Roman Christians " are putting to death the 
actions of the body ; ” and they “ are led by the Spirit of 
God:” vv, 13, 14. Similar language runs through the 
Epistles of Paul. Whatever is good in man, he attributes 
to the Spirit of God dwelling in those who believe in 
Christ. 

An important coincidence is found in Luke xi. 13, 
where Christ assures His hearers, by a comparison with 
human parental love, that “ the Father from heaven will 
give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him.” A still 
more important coincidence is found in John vii. 39, 
where a wonderful promise that from those who believe 
in Christ shall flow rivers of living water is thus ex¬ 
plained : “ this He spoke about the Spirit which they 
who believed in Him were about to receive” 

That Christ will baptize with the Holy Spirit, is a 
conspicuous element of the teaching of the Baptist in 
all four Gospels. The same promise is repeated, in 
Acts i. 5, by the risen, but not yet ascended, Lord. This 
11 



144 


THE NEW LIFE 


[Part III 


united testimony leaves no room to doubt that as matter 
of historic fact Christ promised to give to His servants 
the Holy Spirit to be in them the source of a life not 
human but divine. 

The nature of the Spirit thus promised has been in 
some measure expounded in Lect. IX., and will be 
further discussed in Lect. XXXIV. We have seen that 
the Spirit of God, in the Old and New Testaments, is 
the source of an influence guiding and enlightening and 
strengthening men from within with the wisdom and 
power of God. And we shall learn that the source of 
this divine influence is an eternal Person distinct from 
the Father and sharing to the full His infinite attributes. 
We have just learnt that He is given to the servants of 
Christ to work out in them the purposes of God as the 
animating principle of the New Life in Christ. This 
being so, the examples of the work of the Spirit quoted 
in Lect. IX. become illustrations of the Christian life. 
The Spirit who fitted Samson and Bezaleel for their 
work and made the prophets to be the mighty voice of 
God is given to be in us the arm and hand and voice 
of God. Against that power no hostile force, human 
or natural or diabolical, can prevail. And the wisdom 
thus given is able to guide in every perplexity. He 
who gives the Spirit may well say, “ Sufficient for thee 
is My grace.” 

A new feature of the Spirit of God in the New 
Testament is that He is also the Spirit of Christ, i.e. of 
Him who lived a human life of unreserved devotion to 
God. We wonder not to find (eg Rom. viii. io, Gal. 



I ECT. XVI] 


IN THE SPIRIT OF GOD 


*45 


ii. 20) that the indwelling of the Spirit of Christ is the 
actual presence of Christ in us, the source in us of a life 
like that of Christ. They who are filled with the Spirit 
of Christ are filled with the mind and power of Christ. 
Their life is thus, in some sense, a continuation of His 
Incarnation. He who of old manifested Himself to 
men in the flesh and blood born of Mary now manifests 
Himself in His servants living on earth by His Spirit 
dwelling in them. Other teachers can impart know¬ 
ledge and set before their pupils a worthy example. 
But Christ puts His own life into His servants, His own 
intelligence to enlighten them, His own moral strength 
to make them strong, and His own love to be the main¬ 
spring of their life. 

It is now evident that the gift of the Spirit of God is 
sufficient for all our needs. As a bearer of the intelli¬ 
gence of Christ, He reveals to us in its excellence the 
great purpose of God touching His Kingdom, and thus 
leads us to approve and embrace it. As a bearer of 
the moral power of Christ, He maintains that purpose in 
us, in spite of allurements around, and gives us moral 
strength to work it out in the various details of life. We 
are thus conscious that our life and purposes and actions 
have their source not in ourselves but in God ; and are 
led onwards and upwards by a wisdom and power not 
human but divine. No longer do we live, but Christ 
lives in us. 

The doctrine just expounded, viz., that whatever God 
claims from us He is ready to work in us by His Spirit 
dwelling in our hearts, places the moral life of man in a 



146 


THE NEW LIFE 


[Part III 


light altogether new. Apart from the gift of the Spirit, 
we could obey God only by our own moral strength ; 
which experience has proved to be utter weakness. 
Consequently, even the yoke of Christ was a burden we 
were unable to bear. But now every command is a 
virtual promise: for it declares what God purposes to 
work in us. We have learnt the prayer of Augustine, 
“ Give what Thou bidst, and bid what Thou wilt: ” 
Confessions bk. x. 29. The ancient moral law and the 
new and broader law of Christ have become to us a 
Gospel of joy. “ Thy statutes have been my songs in 
the house of my pilgrimage.” 

This doctrine is a characteristic and all-important 
feature of the Gospel of Christ as compared with all 
other moral teaching; except that it is more or less 
clearly indicated in the Old Testament, chiefly as a 
promise of blessing foreseen in the far future. So 
Deut. xxx. 6: “Jehovah thy God will circumcise thy 
heart and the heart of thy seed to love Jehovah thy God 
with all thy heart and with all thy soul, in order that 
thou mayest live.” Also Ezek. xxxvi. 25 : “ And I will 
sprinkle upon you clean water, and ye shall be clean. 
From all your filthinesses and from all your idols I will 
cleanse you. And I will give to you a new heart ; and 
a new spirit I will put within you : and I will take 
away the heart of stone out of your flesh, and 1 will 
give you a heart of flesh. And My Spirit I will put 
within you, and I will make you to walk in My 
statutes, and My judgments ye shall keep and do.” 
God promises in Joel ii. 28, 29, “It shall come to pass 




Lect. XVI] 


IN THE SPIRIT OF GOD 


147 


afterwards that I will pour out My Spirit upon all flesh/’ 
upon men and women, slaves and freemen. With 
these promises of a divinely-wrought salvation agrees 
the prayer in Ps. li. 7, 10 : “ Purify me from sin (literally, 
unsin me) with hyssop, and I shall be clean *, wash me 
and I shall be whiter than snow ... a clean heart create 
for me, O God, and a steadfast spirit renew within me.” 

The above teaching and other teaching similar raise 
the Old Testament above all contemporary religious 
literature, and give to it abiding value even to those who 
have heard the Gospel of Christ It is an important 
link between the Old Testament and the New; an 
evidence of a special revelation given to ancient Israel, 
in addition to the revelation given to all men in creation 
and in the Moral Sense of man, leading up to the greater 
revelation afterwards given in Christ. That these 
promises given of old to one small nation are finding 
to-day a world-wide fulfilment in the servants of great 
David’s greater Son, is no small proof that both the 
ancient promises and the Gospel of Christ are from the 
Creator and Ruler of the world. 



LECTURE XVII 

THE NEW LIFE IN FAITH 

I N the last Lecture we learnt that the new life in Christ 
is a work of the Spirit of God in man and therefore 
a gift of God to man. It is at once evident that this 
work of God is not wrought in all men, not even in 
all who hear the Gospel. And the experience of the 
servants of Christ tells them that in them, even in their 
best moments, the purpose of God has not been fully 
accomplished. All this proves that its accomplishment 
has conditions other than the will of God. We ask 
what these conditions are ; or, in other words, how we 
may obtain for ourselves in the highest degree the new 
life breathed into men by the Spirit of God. 

That the condition sought for is in man, that on 
himself alone depends whether, and to what degree, 
the salvation announced by Christ is appropriated by 
each one who hears the glad tidings, we shall learn in 
Part IV., where we shall discuss the divine and human 
elements in the Christian life. 

The various writers of the New Testament agree to 
teach that the new life is conditioned by FAITH ; in 
other words they teach that only so far as each one 

148 


Lect. XVII] 


THE NEW LIFE IN FAITH 


149 


believes the good news of salvation does the Spirit of 
God work out in him the purpose of God and lead him 
along the path already trodden by Christ. So Paul in 
Gal. ii. 20, after saying, “ no longer do I live, but in me 
Christ lives,” goes on to say, “ the life which I now live 
in flesh I live in faith, viz. belief of the Son of God who 
loved me and gave up Himself for me.” Here we have 
the source of the new life, Christ living in us; its con¬ 
dition, a faith which has Christ for its personal object; 
the historic fact of the death of Christ, which, as we saw 
in my last volume, makes salvation of sinners possible; 
and the eternal love manifested in that historic fact. 
In ch. iii. 4, to some who were seeking to be justified 
in law, Paul asks one question “ only,” viz. " was it by 
works of law that ye received the Spirit, or by a hearing 
of faith ? ” The whole argument following proves that, 
as the beginning, so the development, of the Christian 
life is through faith. In Gal. iii. 14 we read that Christ 
became a curse on our behalf “ in order that we may 
obtain the promise of the Spirit through faith.” In v. 26 
Paul writes, “ ye are all sons of God through faith; ” 
and adds in ch. iv. 6 “ because ye are sons, God has sent 
forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts.” In Gal. 
v. 6 we read that “in Christ Jesus neither circumcision 
avails anything nor uncircumcision, but faith working 
through love.” In 2 Cor. v. 7, Paul writes, “ we walk by 
faith, not by appearance.” 

In Eph. i. 13 Paul reminds his readers that “when 
they believed ” they “ were sealed with the Holy Spirit.” 
In v. 19 he speaks of “the surpassing greatness of the 



*50 


THE NEW LIFE 


[Part III 


power ” of God “ towards those that believe ; ” comparing 
it to the mighty power which raised Christ from the 
dead. Inch. iii. 17 he prays "that Christ may dwell, 
through faith, in the hearts ” of his readers; and that 
thus they “may be strengthened through His Spirit” 
with an influence reaching “ to the inward man.” And 
in ch. vi. 16 he speaks of “ the shield of faith with which 
ye will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the evil 
one.” 

In Rom. vi. 11 Paul bids the Roman Christians reckon 
themselves to be “ dead to sin, but living for God, in 
Christ Jesus.” This reckoning can be no other than the 
process of faith. For it involves a conviction that we 
are, or from the moment of the reckoning shall be, dead 
to sin and living for God. Now this reckoning and con¬ 
viction would be an illusion unless that which we reckon 
be true or at once become true. And, if true, it must 
be wrought in us by the power and Spirit of God. For 
all experience proves that apart from such divine in¬ 
working we are neither dead to sin nor living for God. 
Consequently, the reckoning to which Paul exhorts is an 
assurance based on the word and promise of God that 
from this moment we shall be, by the grace and power 
of God, separated from all sin and living a life of un¬ 
reserved devotion to Him. Such assurance is faith. 

Many slighter indications running throughout his 
epistles leave no room for doubt that the great Apostle 
looked upon the inward salvation wrought in man by 
the Holy Spirit, and the New Life thus imparted, as 
conditioned by belief of the promise of God. So 2 Thess. 



Lect. XVII] 


IN FAITH 


*5* 


ii. 13, “ God chose you for salvation in sanctification of 
the Spirit and belief of the truth and Col. ii. 12, in 
reference to the new life which comes through union 
with Christ, “In whom also ye were raised together with 
Him through belief of the working of God who raised 
Him from the dead.” 

The long list of examples of faith in Heb. xi. was 
given (ch. x. 22, 23) as an encouragement to approach 
God “ in full assurance of faith ” and to “ hold fast the 
confession of hope without wavering : ” and this thought 
dominates much of the epistle, e.g. ch. vi. 11, 12, 18. 
Similar teaching is found in I Peter i. 5, “ who are guarded 
in the power of God, through faith.” The military term, 
“ guarded,” and the present tense, “ are guarded,” imply 
deliverance from sin wrought by the continuous act of 
God. For none are safe unless saved from sin : and the 
safety here is attributed to the abiding operation of the 
power of God. It is said to be “ through faith.” Cp. 
ch. ii. 6, 7, v. 9, where again faith is a condition of 
perseverance in the Christian life. 

Equally clear is the teaching of Christ in John vii. 38 : 
“ He that believes in Me, from within him shall flow 
rivers of living water.” This great promise is explained 
by the words following: “ This said He about the 
Spirit which they who believe in Him were about to 
receive.” The promise and the explanation assert that 
the fulness of the Christian life which brings blessing to 
others around is wrought by the Spirit of God in man, 
on the condition of faith. 

In the Synoptist Gospels faith is very conspicuous 



152 


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[Part III 


as a condition of blessing. In Matt. ix. 22, Christ says 
to an afflicted woman, “ Be of good cheer, daughter, 
thy faith has saved thee.” \n v. 29, of two blind men 
who cried to Him for help Christ asked, “ Believe ye 
that I am able to do this?” And, when they had 
replied in the affirmative, He said, evidently stating a 
general principle, “ According to your faith, be it done to 
you.” Very remarkable is Christ’s reply in Matt. xvii. 20 
to His disciples when asking why they were powerless 
to heal a lunatic boy : “ Because of your unbelief.” 
This reply he emphasises by adding, “ Verily I say to 
you, if ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall 
say to this mountain, Remove hence thither, and it will 
remove ; and nothing will be impossible to you.” In 
other words, the power of God working in man is con¬ 
ditioned and limited by man’s faith. So Matt. xxi. 22, 
“all things, so many as ye ask in prayer, believing, 
ye shall receive.” Similarly, in Mark ix. 23, to one who, 
asking help for his son, said, “ If Thou canst do any 
thing, have compassion on us, and help us,” Christ 
answered, rebuking the doubt implied in the petition, 
“ If thou canst believe! All things are possible to him 
that believes.” 

This frequent teaching of the Synoptist Gospels is in 
remarkable harmony with the teaching of Paul, which 
in many respects differs so widely from that of the 
Synoptists, that the moral salvation wrought in man 
by the Spirit of God is also conditioned by man’s 
faith. The agreement of these various types of New 
Testament teaching is complete proof that Christ 



Lect. XVII] 


IN FAITH 


*53 


actually taught that salvation, from beginning to end, is 
through faith. And this is one of the most conspicuous 
features of the Gospel of Christ 

Since the new life is a life of holiness, we may 
speak of the faith which conditions it as SANCTIFYING 
FAITH, thus distinguishing it from the faith described 
on pp. 116, 117 of my earlier volume as the condition of 
Justification. We shall now investigate its specific nature. 

Already we have learnt (Through Christ to God , 
p. 106) that faith or belief, these being equivalent, is 
mental rest in an idea; and that, where faith has a 
personal object, this mental rest is caused by a spoken 
word and assumes the form of reliance upon the word 
spoken and upon the character of the speaker. Justifying 
and sanctifying faith are alike in having God and Christ 
as their personal Object. So Gal. ii. 20, “ in faith of 
the Son of God ; ” according to the ordinary objective 
use of the Greek genitive. Also 2 Tim. i. 12, “ I know 
whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that He is 
able to guard, to that day, that which I have committed 
to Him.” Similarly, in John vii. 38, Christ says, “He 
that believes in Me, from within him shall flow rivers 
of living water ; ” and in Mark xi. 22, “ Have faith of 
God.” Indisputably the faith which conditions the 
work of the Spirit of God in man has God for its 
Personal Object. In other words, in each of its 
two departments, saving faith is an assurance, resting 
upon the word and power and love of God, that He 
will fulfil to us His promise of salvation. In this idea, 
the mind of the believer is at rest 



*54 


THE NEW LIFE 


[Part III 


Sanctifying faith differs from the faith which justifies 
in the specific word believed, i.e. in its OBJECT-MATTER. 
When we come to God for pardon, we grasp, and 
appropriate to ourselves, His promise of pardon for all 
who believe that promise. And the promise gives us 
a measure of rest. By faith we obtain the pardon 
promised to all who believe : and the promise assures 
us that God no longer frowns upon us because of our 
past sins. On the other hand, we know that God smiles 
only on those who obey Him, and that Christ claims 
the unreserved loyalty, in action and word and thought, 
of all those whom He saves. This unreserved devotion 
we have not given; and for our failure in the past and 
for our lack of love we stood condemned, until we 
ventured to believe that this condemnation was buried 
in the grave of Christ. But forgiveness for past un¬ 
faithfulness will not satisfy us. We cannot be at rest 
in God by mere forgiveness and falling again. We 
need to be kept from falling and actually to yield to 
God the devotion He claims. 

In view of this deeper need, Christ speaks to us 
again ; and thus a new object-matter is given for faith. 
He promises to work in us by His Spirit the devotion 
which He requires, to give us complete victory over 
all sin and to fill our hearts with an all-controlling love 
to God. This promise we embrace. We dare not 
doubt His ability and His purpose to save. Incredible 
as it may seem that we who have been so long led 
captive by sin should now triumph over all sin, even 
over the accumulated present power of our own past 



Lkct. XVII] 


IN FAITH 


*55 


transgressions, and yield to God henceforth a whole¬ 
hearted service, it is easier to believe that God will 
enable us to do this than to suppose that His promise 
will fail. We therefore venture to believe that what He 
has promised He will also perform, even in us. This 
reasonable expectation gives us rest. And in proportion 
to this rest of faith is the promise of God fulfilled in us. 
This inward rest in expectation of a salvation wrought 
in us by the power of the Spirit of God is sanctifying 
faith. 

This confident expectation of victory by the in¬ 
working power of God by no means supersedes earnest 
and watchful struggle against sin and intense and 
intelligent personal effort to yield to Christ the devotion 
He claims. For the new life is both divine in its source 
and human in its development. Indeed, it is psycho¬ 
logically impossible to believe that God will save us 
from sin unless we resolutely set ourselves against it. 
Nor can we expect Christ to live in us a life of devotion 
to God like His own life on earth unless we appropriate 
to ourselves the mind that was in Christ and gladly lay 
upon the altar consecrated by His blood whatever we 
have and are. Thus, just as the faith which justifies is 
impossible apart from repentance, so sanctifying faith 
is impossible apart from unreserved consecration of our¬ 
selves to God. 

Since this consecration is a new purpose, it stands 
related to repentance, which as we saw (Through Christ 
to God\ p. 135) is a change of purpose. 

Not unfrequently, reluctance to give to Christ the 



THE NEW LIFE 


[Part III 


156 


devotion He claims, i.e. to use for Him and under His 
direction our various powers, has paralysed faith and 
left men in spiritual weakness. On the other hand, an 
unreserved surrender to God not supplemented by faith 
in the promise and power of God has often been followed 
by failure and disappointment and sometimes by despair. 
For full rest in God and for full realisation of the new 
life in Christ, we need first an earnest and all-embracing 
consecration, and then a full assurance that what we 
need God will work in us by His Spirit. 

Christ’s claim to the unreserved devotion of His 
servants is the Law, and His promise to work in them 
whatever He claims is the Gospel, of the New Life in 
Christ. 

That faith is the one immediate condition both of 
Justification and of the entire Christian life, suggests 
irresistibly a deep and far-reaching congruity between 
this unique condition and the benefits dependent on it. 
And this congruity is not far to seek. All real belief 
is a surrender of the whole man to be controlled by 
something or some one which or whom his intelligence 
declares to be worthy of confidence. Faith in God is 
confidence given to One whom our highest intelligence 
recognises with complete satisfaction as most worthy of 
our confidence. We need not wonder that such satis¬ 
faction with, and rest in, God is the one condition of the 
effective operation in man of those divine influences 
which raise him from bondage to sin into a life of 
intelligent devotion to God. Faith in God is the normal 
mental attitude of an intelligent creature to whom his 



Lect. XVII] 


IN FAITH 


*57 


Creator has spoken good tidings of salvation and 
blessing. 

Sanctifying faith differs from justifying faith in that 
the former is at once and in increasing measure verified 
by actual experience. Justification takes place in God. 
It is the smile of a pardoning God replacing, for the 
justified, His righteous anger against sin. But, that 
God smiles on them, the justified know at first only by 
faith. On the other hand, the new life in Christ is 
matter of direct experience. They who possess it are 
conscious of a hand from above raising them, and 
breaking their previous bondage to sin; and they feel in 
their hearts the pulsations of a new life. They are 
conscious of aims and efforts which their moral sense 
approves as good. This new and self-attested life is a 
complete verification of the faith with which in their 
felt moral weakness they ventured to expect it; and 
of the earlier faith with which they accepted the Gospel 
promise of forgiveness. For, that they have now power 
to do right in a measure unknown to them before, is 
complete proof that their past sins are forgiven. 

Thus sanctifying faith and its blessed results both 
supplement and verify the faith which justifies. 

The three elements of the New Life in Christ dis¬ 
cussed in the three foregoing lectures, viz. (i) unreserved 
loyalty to Christ, (2) wrought in man by the Holy 
Spirit, (3) on condition of man’s faith, are inseparably 
connected, not only, as we have seen, in the teaching of 
the New Testament, but in their own nature. For 



158 


[Part III 


THE NEW LIFE 


God’s claim to the unreserved devotion of His servants 
would, in consequence of the bondage to sin in which 
all men are born, be in vain unless God work in them 
the devotion He claims. And, if this devotion is to be 
in any real sense their own, this work of God in man 
must be conditional on man’s free surrender to it. Of 
this surrender, faith is the simplest form. For, all 
actual obedience, involving as it does victory over a 
hostile power, is possible only by the work of the Spirit 
of God in man. But faith in God is simply man’s 
inward surrender to One whom his intelligence and moral 
sense declare to be worthy of his utmost confidence. In 
other words, if we are to live for God, this must be 
by His work in us through the Holy Spirit, and this 
conditioned by our faith. 

It may be objected that faith is itself a work of the 
Spirit and therefore cannot be a condition of the gift of 
the Spirit. And, undoubtedly, the Spirit, when received, 
reveals to us in increasing measure the power and 
earnestness and love of God, and thus gives to faith a 
broader foundation on which it builds a firmer confidence. 
Moreover, even the earliest surrender of faith is helped 
by the influences with which God draws all men to 
Himself. But, as we shall see in PART IV., there is in 
faith a personal surrender which is in a very real sense 
man’s own act, dependent on himself alone. And this 
is the ultimate condition of salvation, the ultimate reason 
why one man is saved and another is not saved. 

Notice that the Spirit is the link connecting faith 
with the New Life conditioned by faith. For faith has 



Lect. XVII] 


IN FAITH 


*59 


not in itself power to save. But, to those who believe, 
God gives, in sovereign mercy, the divine Bearer of 
the power and life of God. To know this, greatly 
helps our faith. For we dare not doubt that the 
Spirit thus given is able to impart even to us the 
devotion which God claims. 

That God works in man by His Spirit the devotion 
He claims, in proportion to man’s faith, changes com¬ 
pletely the whole aspect of the Christian life. It 
becomes now an effort to understand the will of God 
concerning us, and an effort to believe that what He 
desires Himself will work in us. This new aspect 
greatly increases our obligation to give to God that 
which He claims. For we can no longer plead the 
excuse of inability. On the other hand it brings 
within our reach a completeness of devotion to God 
otherwise impossible and inconceivable. Henceforth 
we wait with confidence and joy to see in our own 
experience the wonderful works of God. 

Our delineation of the New Life in Christ has now 
reached a certain general completeness. We have 
learnt its distinctive character, viz. unreserved loyalty 
to Christ, i.e. the use of all our powers to work out the 
purposes for which the Eternal Son assumed human 
form; its source, viz. the Spirit of God given to dwell 
in man ; its condition, viz. a confident expectation, based 
upon the word and promise of God, that God will work 
in us whatever He desires us to be and to do. 

It remains only that we trace into certain practical 

details the broad principles thus laid down. 

12 



LECTURE XVIII 


THE NEW LIFE IN ITS FURTHER RELATION TO 
CHRIST 


V ERY remarkable teaching peculiar to the New 
Testament as compared with all earlier religious 
teaching, in some of its elements peculiar to Paul, in 
others to Paul and John, now demands our best attention. 

Already we have seen that of the New Life in Christ, 
of its every thought, purpose, and effort, Christ and 
His Kingdom are the one definite AIM. (He is also 
the aim of the universe. So Col. i. 16: “for Him 
have all things been created.”) In other words, the 
new life is (i) For Christ. 

We are also frequently taught that this aim can be 
attained, i.e. that God’s purposes about us are accom¬ 
plished, only (2) Through Christ. This phrase is 
very frequent in the New Testament to describe the 
relation of Christ to the work both of creation and 
of salvation. It represents Him as the Agent or 
Instrument through whom God accomplishes His 
creative and redemptive purposes. 

As examples, I may quote 1 Cor. viii. 6, “ To us 
there is one God, the Father, from whom are all 

16c 


Lect. XVIII] NEW LIFE IN RELATION TO CHRIST 161 


things . . . and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom 
arc all things, and we through Him.” So 2 Cor. v. 18, 
“ God reconciled us to Himself through Christ; ” Rom. 

v. I, 2, “peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 
through whom also we have had access into this grace 
in which we stand;” and again in v. ii, “through 
whom we have now received the reconciliation.” In 

w. 12-21, the phrase before us is the dominant note 
of an important comparison between Adam and Christ, 
and of an important statement about the Law. It 
occurs also in Rom. i. 5, 8, ii. 16, vii. 4, xv. 30, 
xvi. 27. Similarly Col. i. 20, “ He was pleased through 
Him to reconcile all things to Himself;” Eph. i. 5, 
ii. 18, Phil. L II, I Thess. v. 9, Titus iii. 5, and 
elsewhere. 

The same phrase is found, in the same sense, in 
Heb. i. 2, “through whom He made the ages;” 
ch. ii. 10, through whom arc all things;” ch. vii. 25, 
“those that come through Him to God;” ch. xiii. 
15, 21. Similarly John i. 3, “all things were made 
through Him;” v. 10, “the world was made through 
Him ; ” v. 17, “ grace and truth through Jesus Christ; ” 
ch. iii. 17, “that the world may be saved through 
Him ;” ch. xiv. 6, “ no one comes to the Father except 
through Me ; ” and I John iv. 9, “ that we may live 
through Him.” Also I Peter i. 21, “who through 
Him believe in God;” ch. ii. 5, “acceptable to God 
through Jesus Christ” 

The frequency of this phrase in various writers of 
the New Testament reveals its importance as noting 



162 


THE NEW LIFE IN 


[Part III 


a far-reaching relation between Christ and the works 
and acts of God. He is not the First Cause : for all 
things (i Cor. viii. 6, 2 Cor. v. 18) are from God. 
But He is the avenue or medium through which, i.e. 
the Agent through whom, God works out His purposes. 
As such He is “ Mediator of a New Covenant.” That 
the Son of God holds a similar relation to creation 
and redemption, to the universe and to the Kingdom of 
God, reveals their common source and essential unity. 

He who is the Aim and the Agent of the New Life, 
is also its PATTERN. Just as the Creator (Gen. i. 26 ) 
is Himself the eternal Archetype of His intelligent 
creatures, so the incarnate Son is the pattern of those 
whom through Him God reconciles to Himself. 

As examples I may quote I Cor. xi. I, “become 
imitators of me, as I also am of Christ; ” and 2 Cor. 
viii. 9, where Paul, when urging his readers to gene¬ 
rosity, appeals to the supreme example of Christ, “ for 
ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that 
because of you He became poor, though He was rich, 
in order that ye by His poverty may become rich.” 
Still more remarkable is Phil. ii. 4-8: “not each one 
seeking his own interests, but each one also the interests 
of others. Let this mind be in you which was also 
in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God deemed 
not His equality with God a means of self-enrichment, 
but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant and 
being made in the likeness of men . . . becoming 
obedient to death, even death on a cross.” Here the 
incarnation and death of the Son of God are set before 



Lect. XVIII] ITS FURTHER RELATION TO CHRIST 163 


us as revealing the mind of Christ, a mind which Paul 
desires to be reproduced in his readers. In Rom. vi. 10 
we read that Christ “ lives for God ; ” and in v. 11 this 
is set before us as our example, “ in like manner reckon 
yourselves to be dead to sin and living for God.” In 
Rom. viii. 29 we read of a divine purpose that we be 
“conformed to the image of His Son,” in order that 
thus the only-begotten may become “ firstborn among 
many brethren.” This refers evidently to the future 
glory of the servants of God ; and it asserts that of that 
glory the splendour of the eternal Son is to be the 
pattern. In Phil. iii. 21 we are expressly taught that the 
glorified body of the risen Lord is the model to which 
will be conformed the risen bodies of His servants. 

That, even in His suffering and death, Christ is our 
pattern, is very conspicuously taught in I Peter ii. 21-24, 
where the writer, while urging his readers to endure 
suffering even for doing good, holds before them the 
great example: “ also Christ suffered on your behalf, 
leaving you an example in order that ye may follow in 
His steps.” This pattern is then further described: 
“ who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth ; 
who when reviled did not revile again, when suffering 
did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him that 
judges justly, who bore our sins in His body on the 
wood.” The same example is again urged in ch. iii. 
17, 18 ; and in ch. iv. 1, “Christ having suffered in the 
flesh, arm yourselves also with the same mind.” 

In John xiii. 15, after washing His disciples’ feet, 
Christ says, “ I have given you a pattern in order 



164 


THE NEW LIFE IN 


[Part III 


that, according as I have done, also ye may do.” In 
ch, xv. 10, Christ sets Himself before His disciples 
as their example: “ if ye keep My commandments, 
ye shall continue in My love, as I have kept My 
Father’s commandments and continue in His love.” 
So again in v. 12: “this is My commandment, that 
ye love one another, as I have loved you.” Note also 
I John ii. 6, “he that says that he abides in Him 
ought, as He walked, also Himself to walk.” Similarly, 
in Matt. xi. 29 Christ says, “take up My yoke upon 
you and learn from Me: for I am meek and lowly in 
heart.” Throughout the New Testament, Christ’s 
own disposition and action are in various ways set 
before His servants as a perfect model for their own 
thought and life. The servants of Christ are to be 
like Christ. 

It is worthy of note that the elements in Christ chiefly 
held up for our imitation are those elements which at 
first sight seem to be most completely beyond us, viz. 
His incarnation and His death. These are set before us, 
not for literal imitation, which is impossible, but because 
in them most conspicuously was manifested that mind 
of Christ which must be in us. 

Very conspicuous and remarkable is the phrase IN 
CHRIST, common, in a somewhat different form, to the 
writings of Paul and John, but not found elsewhere in 
the New Testament. Evidently it embodies a concep¬ 
tion of the believer’s relation to Christ which dominated 
and moulded the thought of the two great theologians 
of the New Testament. 



Lect. XVIII] ITS FURTHER RELATION TO CHRIST 165 


In Rom. iii. 24 we read of “ the redemption which is 
in Christ Jesus ;” in ch. vi. 11, "living for God in Christ 
Jesus;” in v. 23, “eternal life in Christ Jesus;” in 
ch. viii. I," no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus; ” in 

v. 2, “ in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of 
sin and of death ; ” and in v. 39, " the love of God which 
is in Christ Jesus.” So 1 Cor. i. 2, “sanctified in Christ 
Jesus;” v. 30, “from Him are ye in Christ Jesus;” 
ch. iii. I, “babes in Christ;” ch. iv. 17, “beloved and 
faithful in the Lord ;” 2 Cor. v. 17, “if any one be in 
Christ, he is a new creature ; ” v. 19, “ God was, in Christ, 
reconciling the world to Himself.” Still more marked is 
the same phrase in the Epistle to the Ephesians. So 
ch. i. I, “faithful in Christ Jesus ;” v. 3, “ every spiritual 
blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, according as 
He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world ; ” 

w. 6, 7, "made us objects of His grace in the Beloved 
One, in whom we have redemption through His blood, 
the forgiveness of sins;” v. 10, “to gather together all 
things in Christ;” v. 12, “before-hoped in the Christ ;” 
ch. ii. 6, “ made us sit together with Him in the heavenly 
places in Christ Jesus ;” v. 10, “created in Christ Jesus 
for good works;” v. 13, “now in Christ Jesus ye who 
were formerly far off have become near in the blood 
of Christ;” vv. 20, 21, “Christ Jesus, in whom every 
building grows into a holy temple in the Lord.” 

The phrase, “ in Christ,” has its counterpart in the 
teaching that Christ dwells and lives in His people. So 
Rom. viii. 10, “ if Christ be in you : ” evidently equivalent 
to “if the Spirit of God dwells in you,” in w. 9, 11. 



i66 


THE NEW LIFE IN 


[Part III 


Similarly Gal. ii. 20, “ no longer do I live, but Christ 
lives in me;” and Eph. iii. 17, “that Christ dwell, 
through faith, in your hearts ; ” and Col. i. 27, “ Christ 
in you the hope of glory.” 

In the Fourth Gospel, similar words are traced to the 
lips of Christ. So John vi. 56, “he that eats My flesh 
and drinks My blood abides in Me and I in him.” They 
are illustrated by the parable of the vine in John xv. 1-8 : 
“ Every branch in Me not bearing fruit, He takes it 
away ... as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, 
except it abides in the vine, so neither can ye except 
ye abide in Me ... if any one do not abide in Me, he 
has been cast outside like the branch and has become 
withered ... if ye abide in Me and My words abide in 
you.” Notice the slightly changed phrase in vv. 9, 10, 
“ abide in My love.” Very important, as shedding light 
upon the mysterious relation of the Father to the Son, 
and on that of God to man, is ch. xvii. 21-23 : “ * n order 
that they all may be one, according as Thou, Father, 
art in Me and I in Thee, in order that also they may be 
in Us . . .in order that they may be one as We are 
One, I in them and Thou in Me, in order that they may 
be perfected into one.” Notice also I John ii. 6, “he 
that says he abides in Him; ” v. 24, “ if that which ye 
have heard from the beginning abide in you, also ye 
shall abide in the| Son and in the Father; ” ch. iii. 6, 
“ every one that abides in Him does no sin, every one that 
sins has not seen Him nor known Him.” 

As in the Epistles of Paul, so more conspicuously in 
the writings of John, Christ abides in those who abide 



Lect. XVIII] ITS FURTHER RELATION TO CHRIST 167 


in Him. So John xv. 4, “ abide in Me, and I in you ; ” 
v. 5, “ he that abides in Me and I in him, this one bears 
much fruit, because apart from Me ye can do nothing; ” 
1 John iii. 24, “ he that keeps His commandments abides 
in Him and He in him : and in this we know that He 
abides in us, from the Spirit which He has given us; ” 
ch. iv. 4, “ greater is He that is in you than he that is 
in the world vv. 12, 13, “if we love one another, God 
abides in us and His love is perfected in us : in this we 
know that we abide in Him and He in us, from the 
Spirit which He has given us; ” v. 15, “ God abides in 
him and he in God ; ” v. 16, “ he that abides in love, 
abides in God and God in him.” 

This language of Paul and John and Christ represents 
Christ as not only the Aim and Agent and Pattern of 
the new life but also as its Environment, as the home 
and refuge and vital atmosphere of whatever His 
servants think and speak and do. He is on every side 
of them: and IN CHRIST they rest. It also represents 
Christ as the animating principle moving them from 
within and breathing into them a new life. These two 
aspects of their relation to Christ are inseparably con¬ 
nected. For the new life within raises us into a new 
environment; or rather it becomes itself a new environ¬ 
ment transforming everything around us. They in 
whom Christ dwells find in Him their home and safe 
refuge. 

Notice carefully that the relation, just expounded, of 
believers to Christ is traced to an essential relation of 
the Son to the Father. So John xiv. 20: “I in My 



168 


THE NEW LIFE IN 


[Part III 


Father, and ye in Me, and I in you ; ” ch. xvii. 21, “as 
Thou, Father, art in Me and I in Thee.” Each of these 
divine persons is to the other both centre and circum¬ 
ference. And, in close agreement with the frequent 
teaching both of John and Paul, this eternal and mutual 
relation of the Father and the Son is the pattern of the 
mutual relation of Christ and His servants. Conse¬ 
quently, as quoted above, they who abide in Christ abide 
also in God. 

Of this indwelling of Christ in His servants, the Spirit 
of God dwelling in the hearts of believers is the im¬ 
mediate Agent. For He is that divine person who comes 
into immediate inward contact with the spirit of man. 
Hence, to be in Christ is to be in the Spirit and to have 
the Spirit in us. So Rom. viii. 9, 10, “ ye are not in the 
flesh but in the spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells 
in you : but if any one has not the Spirit of Christ, this 
man is not His : but if Christ be in you,” etc. He is the 
one Administrator of the entire work of God in Christ. 

Since Christ is a Person distinct from us, He is, to 
those who dwell in Him and in whom He dwells, a divine 
Companion, and they are sharers with Him of all that 
He has and is. Hence flows a fifth relation of Christ to 
His servants. They live, not only for Him and through 
Him and like Him and in Him, but WITH Him. 

After teaching in Rom. viii. 14 that “ so many as are 
led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God,” Paul 
goes on in v. 17 to argue that they are, “ if children, also 
heirs, heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ.” He 
means that, since they share with Christ in some measure 



I.ect. XVIII] ITS FURTHER RELATION TO CHRIST 169 


the relation to God indicated by the title “ Son of God,” 
they share also His great inheritance : in other words, 
he asserts that the servants of Christ in virtue of their 
relation to God will themselves enjoy, as His children, 
the infinite wealth of God. The solemn words following, 
“if we suffer with Him in order that we may also be 
glorified with Him,” assert conspicuously that in all 
things the servants of Christ share the fortunes of their 
Lord. 

This partnership with Christ is again asserted in Eph. 
ii. 5,6:“ He has made us alive together with Christ . . . 
and has raised us together with Him and made us sit 
together with Him in the heavenly places in Christ.” 
In other words, God has made us, who were dead by 
reason of our sins, to be sharers of the life which He 
breathed into the lifeless body which lay in Joseph’s tomb. 
Virtually, by raising Christ from death to life and from 
earth to heaven where He now sits enthroned, God has 
raised us from spiritual death into a new life and has 
made us already sharers of the throne of Christ. For, 
our new life in Christ is a result of the return to life of 
the sacred corpse of the Crucified. Similar language is 
found in Col. ii. 12, 13, iii. 1,3. Compare 2 Tim. ii. 12, “ if 
we have died with Him, we shall also live with Him ; if 
we endure, we shall also reign with Him.” 

In John xvii. 24 our Lord prays, “ Father, that which 
Thou hast given to Me, I desire that where I am also 
they may be with Me, in order that they may behold 
My glory.” And in Rev. iii. 21 the Risen One says 
again, “ he that overcomes, I will give to him to sit 



170 


THE NEW LIFE IN 


[Part III 


with Me in My throne, as also I overcame and have 
sat down with My Father in His throne.” Similarly, 
Matt. xix. 28, “ when the Son of Man shall sit upon His 
throne of glory, also ye shall sit upon twelve throne^ 
judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” 

In the Epistles of Paul, the foregoing teaching 
receives a peculiar and important development, viz. that 
the great historic events of the human life of Christ are 
reproduced in the spiritual experience of His followers. 
So Gal. ii. 20, “ I died to law . . . with Christ I have 
been crucified ; ” ch. v. 24, “ they that are Christ’s have 
crucified the flesh with its passions and desires; ” and 
ch. vi. 14, “through which (cross) the world has been 
crucified to me, and I to the world.” Similarly Rom. 
vi. 2-11, “we died to sin ... we were buried with Him 
through the baptism for death ... we were united in 
growth with the likeness of His death and we shall be 
with that of His resurrection . . . our old man has been 
crucified with Him ... we have died with Christ, and 
we shall live with Him ... in this way (as Christ died 
to sin) reckon yourselves dead to sin and living for God 
in Christ Jesus.” Also ch. vii. 4, “ we were put to death 
to the Law through the (crucified) body of Christ.” 
And again Col. ii. 11, 12, “we were buried with Him in 
our baptism; in which also we were raised with Him 
through faith ; ” so v. 20, “ if ye died with Christ from 
the rudiments of the world ;” ch. iii. 1, “if then ye were 
raised with Christ; ” and 2 Tim. ii. 12, "we died with 
Him.” 

Slightly different is the thought expressed in Col. 




Lect. XVIII] ITS FURTHER RELATION TO CHRIST 171 


it* I3» “ you, being dead by reason of the trespasses 
and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made 
you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all 
our trespasses ; ” Eph. ii. 5, 6, " and us, being dead by 
reason of our trespasses, He has made alive with 
Christ. . . and has raised us with Him and made us 
sit with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” 

In the above passages, notice the frequent and con¬ 
spicuous recurrence of verbs compounded with aw-, a 
mode of speech reproduced very imperfectly by any 
English equivalent. 

This teaching implies that the servants of Christ not 
only are sharers of His inheritance but have passed 
through an experience analogous to the various steps 
of the transition from Christ’s human life on earth to 
the throne of God. Paul’s language implies also that 
their inward spiritual experience is a result of His 
outward and historic experience ; that because centuries 
ago He escaped by His own death from the assault of 
evil they are to-day conquerors of sin, that because God 
raised Him once from the death in which He lay they 
now live a new and deathless life. The life which 
entered into the sacred corpse of Christ has, in con¬ 
sequence of their inward contact with the Risen One, 
entered into them and become to them the breath of 
immortality. And the assurance that, in consequence 
of what Christ has already done and suffered for them, 
they will some day reign with Him in endless life is 
to them, in the anticipation of faith, a present partici¬ 
pation in that glory. 



172 


THE NEW LIFE IN 


[Part. Ill 


This teaching affords rerrfarkable and powerful 
confirmation of the historic truth of the death 
and resurrection of Christ. For it reveals the deep 
impression made by these events on the mind and 
thought of Paul; an impression without parallel in the 
religious thought of man. And this impression can be 
accounted for only by the truth of the belief which 
exerted so profound an influence on the mind of the 
Apostle. It is thus an important addition to the 
argument of my last volume. 

The same teaching greatly helps our faith. As we 
look back to Christ’s death upon the cross and 
remember that in the moment in which He bowed 
His head in death He escaped completely from the 
enemies to whose assault, for our sakes, He had 
exposed Himself, we venture to believe that we are 
sharers of that deliverance, that upon His cross we 
have ourselves escaped from the dominion of sin ; and 
we also venture to believe that by faith and in Christ 
we already share the triumph of our Risen Lord over 
all the enemies of Him and of us. Our faith is 
realised in actual experience. Henceforth His cross 
stands between us and our sins: and through His 
empty grave we enter a life of victory. 

Thus is Christ, the eternal Son of God who became 
Son of Man and died on the cross and rose from the 
dead and rose to heaven, the Beginning and the End, 
the Centre and the Circumference, of the new life 
given by God to His adopted sons. He through 
whose agency and for whose glory the universe was 



Lect. XVIII] ITS FURTHER RELATION TO CHRIST 173 


created is also the Agent and the Aim of this new 
life. He is also its Pattern, and both its animating 
Principle and its living Environment. The entrance of 
this new life into the hearts of its happy possessors 
involved a change so wonderful that it can be 
compared only to the death by which Christ escaped 
from His human and spiritual enemies, to His resurrec¬ 
tion from the dead and His ascension to heaven. It 
places them in close fellowship with Christ, and makes 
them partakers of all that He has and is. 

This conception of life, viz. as inspired and dominated 
by one human and superhuman personality, is unique 
in human thought. Other men have founded religions : 
and some of these religions have continued to our day. 
But not one of them has gained for himself and for 
the events of his life, in the minds even of his most 
devoted followers, a place which can for a moment 
be compared to the place which throughout the 
Christian centuries Jesus of Nazareth has held in the 
hearts and lives of unnumbered thousands of whose 
whole thought He is the beginning and the end. 



LECTURE XIX 


THE NEW LIFE IN ITS RELATION TO SIN 
LREADY in Lect. IV. we have seen that the 



various writers of the New Testament agree 
to teach or plainly to assume that all men have 
committed actual sin. In this, they are supported 
by the moralists of all ages and nations. The same 
sacred writers assert, and represent Christ as asserting, 
that exact retribution beyond the grave for all things 
done on earth awaits every man. They teach also that 
all sin is against God, and incurs His strong dis¬ 
pleasure. And this teaching is, in no small degree, 
verified in our own experience. For, while our hearts 
are turned towards sin, we cannot think of God without 
fear. Evidently and indisputably all sin is a shadow 
hiding from us the smile of God, a discord disturbing 
the normal harmony of the Creator and His intelligent 
creatures, and a barrier separating us from the one 
Source of all good. 

We have also learnt that all past sins are a present 
hostile power holding back the sinner from doing what 
he knows to be right, and thus holding him down in 
degrading bondage. This hostile power is increased by 


Lect. XIX] THE NEW LIFE IN ITS RELATION TO SIN 175 


each past indulgence in sin. For every act goes to form 
a habit leading or forcing us along the path we have 
already trodden. Consequently, each man has to reckon 
with the accumulated inward result of his past life ; and 
must either resist effectually, or be carried along by, the 
accumulated power of his past sins. 

We ask now, In what relation do the adopted sons of 
God stand to this deep shadow and to this hostile 
power? That they have been received into His family 
as His sons, implies that they have passed from under 
the frown of God into the sunshine of His smile. And 
the smile of God implies victory over all sin. For the 
inborn moral sense, which claims to rule the life of man, 
asserts, in words we cannot misunderstand or contradict, 
that God is angry with all who commit sin. Conse¬ 
quently, since experience has proved that we have no 
power of our own to conquer sin, the promise of pardon 
virtually includes deliverance from the hostile power of 
sin. So Matt. i. 21 : “He shall save His people from 
their sins.” This deliverance from sin demands now 
further examination. 

This victory over sin, Paul describes in Rom. vi. 11 
by bidding his readers “ reckon ” themselves " dead to 
sin.” This reckoning is evidently (see p. 150) the mental 
process of faith ; and this death to sin is an accomplish¬ 
ment of the purpose mentioned in v. 6 , “ in order that 
we may no longer be in bondage to sin.” The phrase 
“ dead to sin ” can mean no less than complete de¬ 
liverance from sin. For death is absolute separation. 
Between the dead and the things amid which they 
\3 



76 


THE NEW LIFE 


[Part III 


lived is an infinite gulf. Well may Paul ask in v. 2, 
“We who died to sin, how are we still to live in it?” 
This death to sin Paul compares in vv. io, n to Christ’s 
death on the cross: “ He died to sin once ... in the 
same way reckon yourselves to be dead to sin ... in 
Christ Jesus.” That Christ died to sin, can only mean 
that when He breathed out His life on the cross He 
thereby escaped from all contact with those powers 
of evil to whose assault He exposed Himself in order 
to rescue us. And the separation was complete. On 
the morning of that day Christ was exposed to the fury 
of His foes, human and superhuman. But in the evening 
He was free. By death He had escaped for ever from 
Annas and Caiaphas and the Roman soldiers and from 
the burden and curse of man’s sin. As His sacred 
corpse hung upon the cross, He was indeed “ dead to 
sin.” A similar deliverance Paul bids his readers 
appropriate by the reckoning of faith. It can be no 
less than complete deliverance from all pollution and 
bondage of sin. The same is implied in v. 22 : “ but 
now, having been made free from sin and having become 
servants to God, ye have your fruit for holiness and the 
end eternal life.” 

Similarly, in 2 Cor. vii. I we read, “ Having then 
these promises, let us cleanse ourselves from all defile¬ 
ment of flesh and spirit, accomplishing holiness in the 
fear of God.” This implies a salvation so complete that 
not even our thoughts will be soiled by the defilement 
of sin. For, whatever pollutes the thought pollutes also 
the thinking spirit. This purification is represented as 



Lect. XIX] 


IN ITS RELATION TO SIN 


177 


our own act: for, although only God can save from sin, 
our salvation is conditional on acceptance of the deliver¬ 
ance offered by God. These passages and others 
similar prove that Paul taught, as the privilege of the 
sons of God, complete victory over all sin. 

In close agreement with the above is 1 John i. 7, “the 
blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin and 
v. 9, “ He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and 
to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” The Greek 
aorist here and in 2 Cor. vii. I represents the cleansing 
as already attained. And the words, “ the blood of 
Jesus cleanses,” teach that purification is a result of 
Christ’s violent death on the cross. The same is implied 
also in Titus ii. 14, “ who gave Himself on our behalf 
that He may ransom us from all lawlessness, and purify 
for Himself a people of His own, zealous for good 
works.” Salvation from the hostile power of sin is 
implied in the military term used in 1 Peter i. 5, “ who 
are guarded in the power of God, through faith.” For 
sin is man’s worst foe ; and none are safely guarded unless 
they are saved from all sin. A similar deliverance is 
asserted in an address of Peter recorded in Acts xv. 9: 
“ having cleansed their hearts by faith.” Thus agree 
Paul and John and Peter in announcing salvation from 
all sin. Similarly Heb. ix. 14: “ how much more shall 
the blood of Christ cleanse your conscience from dead 
works, to serve the living God.” And much else in the 
New Testament. 

The language quoted above does not necessarily imply 
annihilation of the inward hostile influence resulting, as 



i 7 8 


THE NEW LIFE 


[Part III 


we have seen, from sinful indulgence in the past, i.e. 
annihilation of all formed habits of sin. For these 
influences and formed habits do not defile us unless 
yielded to. Consequently, a felt tendency to evil, 
trampled under our feet by the power of God, is not 
inconsistent with the purity described above. Similarly 
Christ, though dead to sin, is ever from His throne 
carrying on war against it. The passages quoted above 
teach plainly complete victory over every temptation to 
sin, a victory gained for us by the death of Christ. For 
we cannot be dead to sin while we are led astray and 
polluted by it. But if, as each temptation arises, it is 
overcome, even though we be conscious of its presence 
as a conquered enemy ever ready to rebel and therefore 
an abiding danger, then are we, kept by the power of 
God, both cleansed from sin and dead to sin. 

This distinction is of the utmost practical importance. 
For many who have ventured to accept the full 
salvation promised in the Gospel have been dis¬ 
appointed to find the old tendencies to evil, perhaps 
after a period of apparent quiescence, again asserting 
themselves and endeavouring to regain their lost power, 
thus occasioning fresh conflict with a foe supposed to 
be dead. The disappointment is needless. If we abide 
in faith and thus abide in God, each temptation will 
be followed by victory. Each victory will weaken 
the power of our adversary, and will reveal the im¬ 
pregnability of the fortress in which we have taken 
refuge. 

Sinful habits can be eradicated only as they have 



Lect. XIX] 


IN ITS RELATION TO SIN 


179 


been formed, i.e. by a course of action. God will both 
rescue us from, and destroy, formed habits of sin, in 
thought, word, or act, by giving us successive and 
constant victory over them. The man who has been 
a slave to drink will not at once lose his appetite for 
it. But he will receive power to control that appetite. 
And each victory will weaken it. But it will still 
remain as a danger needing to be guarded with 
constant watchfulness. 

This gradual destruction of the power of bodily 
appetites, strengthened by sinful indulgence, seems 
to be referred to in Rom. viii. 13 : “if by the Spirit 
ye are putting to death the actions of the body, ye 
will live.” Here “the actions of the body” are repre¬ 
sented as having life: otherwise they could not be 
put to death. And this abnormal life can be no other 
than the present evil influence resulting from actions 
done in obedience to the dictates of the bodily life. 
The present indicative, “ ye-are-putting-to-death,” de¬ 
notes an action now going on; and consequently 
gradual. We have here, as the normal state of the 
believer, a gradual destruction, by the aid of ( y . 14) 
the Spirit of God, of an evil influence proceeding from 
the bodily life. 

Instructive also is Gal. v. 16, 17: “walk by the 
Spirit, and ye will not accomplish the desire of the 
flesh. For the flesh desires against the Spirit, and the 
Spirit against the flesh. For these are hostile, each 
to the other, in order that, whatever things ye wish, 
these ye may not do/’ Here is no word of blame, 



THE NEW LIFE 


[Part III 


i5o 


simply a statement of fact. We may therefore take 
it as describing the normal state of the adopted sons 
of God. Two mutually hostile influences seek to 
control their action, viz. the bodily life which they 
share with animals, and the Spirit of God. This 
suggests or implies a continuance of influences opposed 
to the Spirit of God and derived from the constitution 
received at birth. 

From Lectures XVI. and XVII. it follows that 
this deliverance from sin is wrought in us by the 
Spirit of God on the condition of faith. This puts 
within our reach a degree of purity otherwise im¬ 
possible. For to the power of the Holy Spirit there 
are no limits. And we cannot doubt the promise 
of Christ. We therefore go each day into the conflict 
against sin, even against the accumulated power of 
our own past sins, and in spite of our felt moral 
weakness, with a shout of victory. For we know that 
the conflict is carried on not by our weakness but by 
the infinite power of the Spirit of God dwelling in 
our hearts and guarding us from all evil. To thousands 
of the servants of Christ, the discovery that salvation 
from sin is wrought by God in those that believe has 
been an era in the spiritual life. Probably each day 
as they review it they are ready to admit that through 
defective faith it has been marked by sinful imper¬ 
fection. But they thankfully acknowledge that by the 
grace of God they have lived a life of victory over 
sin unknown to them until they ventured to trust the 
keeping of their wayward hearts to the great Shepherd. 



Lect. XIX] 


IN ITS RELATION TO SIN 


181 


In I John iii. 6, we read that “ everyone that abides 
in Him does not sin ; everyone that sins has not seen 
Him, neither knows Him.’* So v. g : " everyone born 
from God does no sin . . . and cannot sin.” Probably 
the word sin refers here to actual transgression; as 
in James i. 15 where it is distinguished from desire , 
* desire, having conceived, brings forth sin.” But 
these words assert that the new life is altogether 
antagonistic to sin ; and that they who commit sin 
either (note the Greek perfect) have not seen the 
heavenly light or have lost the effect of the vision. 

The victory over sin described above is a wonderful 
and decisive verification of the faith with which, while 
groaning under the power of sin, we ventured to accept 
the promise of deliverance. For our sins were essen¬ 
tially our own : and we found ourselves in the past 
completely under their power. But now their power 
is broken ; and this deliverance reveals the presence 
in our hearts of a Helper mightier than the sins which 
formerly held us in bondage. Moreover, this Helper 
moves us to bow to Christ and to call God our Father. 
And this proves that He is the Holy Spirit given by 
God in Christ to His adopted sons. In other words, 
we are directly conscious of an unseen Hand raising 
and guarding us ; and we know that it is the hand of 
our Father in heaven. This inward experience of the 
presence and power of God becomes at once a ground 
of still firmer faith in God and an inspiration of still 
more joyous hope of final victory. 



LECTURE XX 

THE NEW LIFE IN ITS DELATION TO THE LAW 

I N the New Testament the word law denotes some¬ 
times the body of commands ritual (Luke ii. 22-24, 
27, 39, John vii. 23) and moral (Matt. v. 17-43, Rom. 
vii. 7) given to Israel through Moses ; at other times 
the Pentateuch, eg. Gal. iv. 21, where the story of 
Abraham is quoted as written in the Law; or the Jewish 
Scriptures generally, eg. Rq/m. iii. 19, where quotations 
from the Psalms and the Book of Isaiah are spoken of as 
the voice of the Law. In Rom. ii. 15 the Law is said to 
be written on the hearts of all men as the standard 
by which even the Gentiles will be judged. This last 
we can well understand. For the most important 
element of the Jewish Law is but a literary embodiment 
of the inborn Moral Sense of man. That all national 
laws are embodiments of this inborn primal law, is 
asserted by Cicero in an important passage quoted 
on p. 29 of my volume Through Christ to God . From 
this unwritten yet deeply written Law, all human laws 
derive their authority. 

We shall now discuss the relation of the Gospel of 
Christ to the inborn Moral Sense of men and to the 
Law given to Israel by God through the hands of 

18a 


Lect. XX] NEW LIFE IN ITS RELATION TO THE LAW 183 


Moses, as this relation is presented in the New 
Testament. 

This inquiry is the more needful because the Moral 
Sense speaks with an authority which none can deny or 
question. Every religion must be judged according as 
it supports that supreme authority. This was recog¬ 
nised in the definition of religion given at the beginning 
of the earlier volume. If it be correct, whatever does 
not make for righteousness, whatever does not prompt 
men to do that which the Moral Law commands, lies 
outside the domain of religion. The relation between 
the Gospel of Christ and this variously written law 
demands our best attention. 

In Gal. ii. 19 Paul says, “ through law I died to law, in 
order that I may live for God.” Similarly, Rom. vii. 4: 
“ so then, my brethren, ye also have been put to death 
to the Law by the (crucified) body of Christ, in order 
that ye may become Another’s, even His who was raised 
from the dead.” These words are given to explain 
the foregoing illustration taken from a married woman 
set free by the death of her husband from the law which 
bound her to him. They also illustrate an assertion 
in ch. vi. 14, “ ye are not under law but under grace.” 

The phrase “ dead to the Law ” at once recalls the 
words “ dead to sin ” by which Paul describes the 
believer’s complete deliverance from former bondage to 
sin. The word dead certainly denotes in each case 
absolute separation. We ask, In what sense is the 
believer in Christ separated from the dominion of the 
Law? 



1 84 


THE NEW LIFE 


[Part III 


The statements of Paul just quoted, cannot be limited 
to the ceremonial law . For the compass of the word 
law in Rom. vii. 4 cannot be narrower than in vv. 7, 8 
where it includes conspicuously the tenth command¬ 
ment. Moreover the Moral Law is a far more terrible 
barrier to the favour of God than are any mere ordi¬ 
nances of ritual. For it touches the springs of action 
much more closely, and reveals our moral powerless¬ 
ness much more clearly, than do these, and makes a far 
stronger appeal to the Moral Sense. We may perform 
a rite correctly ; but none can so love God and love his 
neighbour as to claim on this ground the favour of God. 
If there is any law from which we need deliverance, it 
is from the condemnation pronounced upon every man 
by these two great commandments. 

In close connection with the above teaching of Paul, 
we find other teaching at first sight contradicting it. In 
Rom. viii. 3, 4 he asserts that God sent His own Son 
“ in order that the decree of the Law may be fulfilled in 
us/’ This implies clearly that obedience to the Law is 
a part of the purpose of the Incarnation of the Son of 
God. The same is implied in ch. xiii. 8-10, where Paul 
supports an exhortation to love one another by saying 
that “ he who loves his neighbour has fulfilled the Law.” 
Then follow several commandments from the Decalogue, 
and the greater commandment, “Thou shalt love thy 
neighbour as thyself.” Paul adds, “ love works no evil 
to his neighbour. Love therefore is a fulfilment of the 
Law.” This implies that in some real sense, the Law is 
still valid as a rule of conduct Otherwise Paul would 



Lect. XX] IN ITS RELATION TO THE LAW 


«8 5 


not support a general exhortation touching conduct by 
an appeal to the Law. 

In Gal. v. 19-21, 1 Cor. vi. 9, 10 we have lists of sins, 
followed by the solemn warning, “they that do such 
things shall not inherit the Kingdom of God.” This 
implies that the broad principles of morality, which 
are frequently enforced in the Old Testament as binding 
on Israel and the world, are still binding under the New 
Covenant, and that obedience to them is an absolute 
condition of entrance into the glory announced by Christ. 
And the Epistles of Paul and the New Testament from 
beginning to end inculcate obedience to the Moral Law 
as a condition of the favour of God. 

Returning now to the comparison in Rom. vii. 1-4, 
we notice that the married woman is, while her husband 
lives, prevented by the Law from marrying another 
man. The Law seems to rivet the chains of what 
may be degrading bondage, and to be an absolute 
barrier to a union which may be for her highest 
advantage. But the husband dies. And now all is 
changed. The hand of death has broken down the 
insuperable barrier, and the woman is free. In this 
sense, she is dead to the Law. Paul says that in a 
similar sense they who believe in Christ have escaped 
from the Law which formerly condemned them. They 
are dead to the Law in the sense that, through the 
death of Christ, they are no longer condemned by it 
to separation from God and to the consequent bondage 
under the yoke of sin. 

On the other hand, the Law is an expression of 



186 


THE NEW LIFE 


[Part III 


the abiding will of God touching the conduct of all 
His intelligent creatures. It is therefore to the adopted 
sons of God an authoritative guide in action: and 
only as they obey it can they enjoy His favour. In 
this sense Paul says in I Cor. ix. 20, 21 that, while 
he is “ not himself under law,*’ he is yet “ not without 
law of God but in a law of Christ.” The changed 
phrase suggests that the Law is no longer a burden 
under which he lies in bondage but a vital element 
in which he lives. 

This changed relation to the Law is brought about 
by the gift of the Spirit of the Son of God, to be in 
the adopted sons, in proportion to their faith, the 
animating principle of a new life of devotion to God. 
For the Law is an expression of the mind of the 
Spirit. “ The Law is spiritual : ” Rom. vii. 14. It is 
“ the Law of the Spirit of life: ” ch. viii. 2. Dwelling 
in the sons of God, the Spirit reveals to them the 
excellence of that which the Law commands; and 
thus makes them eager to do it. And, more wonderful 
still, He gives them power to accomplish what He has 
taught them to desire. 

This gift of the Spirit on the condition of faith 
changes completely the whole aspect of the Law. It 
was ever, and is still, a voice of God speaking with 
an authority which none can contradict But formerly 
we were unable to obey it And the voice of authority 
pronounced our condemnation. Consequently the Law, 
though manifestly divine, was to us an intolerable 
burden. But now we have learnt that whatever God 




Lect. XX] IN ITS RELATION TO THE LAW 


187 


commands He works in those who venture, in faith, 
to expect Him so to do ; that He will Himself lead 
them, and enable them to walk, along the path marked 
out for them in the written law. In other words, the 
command has become a promise, a promise which will 
be fulfilled in us by the power and gift of God 
according to our faith. So complete is the change 
that it can be described only by saying that 
the believer is dead to the Law. For, through the 
death of Christ on the cross he has been saved from 
its condemnation. And through that death he has 
entered a new life of obedience to the Law. Thus 
in the grave of Christ the Law, as Paul and we once 
knew it, has been buried: and from that grave with 
the rising Lord it has risen to be the light and joy 
of His people. 

The apparent occasional antagonism of Paul to 
the Law is explained by his own past experience as a 
sincere and earnest Pharisee. To such, it seemed to be 
an insuperable barrier to the favour of God. On the 
other hand, as a precious revelation of the will of 
God and as a guide through the maze of human 
life, the Law was a joy and song to the best 
men in ancient Israel. So Ps. cxix. 97, “O how I 
love Thy Law! It is my meditation all the day; ” 
and v. 105, “ Thy word is a lamp to my feet, and a 
light to my path.” In all ages these words have 
expressed the experience of the servants of Christ. 

The abiding validity of the Law finds beautiful 
expression in James ii. 8-12: u If ye accomplish the 



188 NEW LIFE IN ITS RELATION TO THE LAW [Part III 


royal Law, according to the Scripture, Thou shalt love 
thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well. But if ye have 
respect of persons, ye work sin, being convicted by 
the Law as transgressors. For whoever has kept the 
whole Law but has stumbled in one thing has become 
guilty of all. For He that said, Commit no adultery, 
said also, Do no murder. But if thou dost no adultery, 
but dost murder, thou hast become a transgressor of 
law. So speak and so do as being about to be judged 
by a law of liberty.” 

The deep harmony, expounded above, between the 
law written in the hearts of all men and in the sacred 
literature of ancient Israel and the Gospel of Christ 
is an all-important and decisive confirmation of other 
evidence proving this last to be a revelation from 
God to man. Manifestly and conspicuously the Gospel 
makes for righteousness. For it liberates us from 
hopeless moral bondage; affords strong motive for 
obeying the moral Law ; and gives power to obey it. 
This wonderful homage paid by the Gospel to the 
moral Law so deeply inwoven into the highest element 
of human nature is complete proof that the Gospel 
comes from the intelligent and righteous Creator and 
Ruler of men. 



LECTURE XXI 

THE NEW LIFE IN ITS RELATION TO THINGS AROUND 



IKE the Moral Sense, and the Law given 


i— / to Israel in which it found historic verbal 
expression, also the universe around us sprang from 
God. Consequently the New Life, which is the breath 
of God in Man, stands in definite relation not only to 
the Law but to the visible universe. For, as God is 
One, so are all things which come forth from Him 
mutually related. We therefore now seek for the 
new relation to their environment in which the New 
Life places the adopted sons of God. 

This inquiry is the more needful because at first 
sight even to the best of the servants of Christ their 
environment seems sometimes to be hostile. And 
in the universe itself, from some points of view, 
confusion seems to reign. We shall find that under 
apparent discord lies deep and far-reaching harmony. 

Evidently to a large extent man is, or seems to be, 
at the mercy of his environment, material and human. 
The constitution of the body, to which food is a 
necessity of life, makes life to be to most men a toil 
and weariness and anxiety. The need for food makes 
man dependent on his further environment. For the 


igo 


THE NEW LIFE IN 


[Part III 


supply of food is conditioned by natural forces beyond 
his control or foresight. This exposes him to want, 
and possibly to starvation. At all times, in con¬ 
sequence of the same bodily constitution, taken in 
connection with the world in which he lives, man is 
liable to accident, involving pain, and to sickness. And 
every man carries in his body the sentence of death. 

All this is greatly aggravated by man’s human 
environment, by the men around him with whom he 
has to do. For, in consequence of his bodily constitution 
and the constitution of the universe, each man is to no 
small degree dependent on his fellows. These, if hostile, 
may take the bread from his mouth, and may inflict loss 
and pain and death. This dependence on others com¬ 
plicates greatly the problems of life. On all sides man 
is hemmed in by his environment near and remote, 
material and human. 

This dependence on environment tends to degrade. 
The effort to maintain ourselves and those dependent 
on us absorbs both time and energy, and thus hinders 
the self-culture which would raise us to a higher level of 
intelligence. And, not unfrequently, under pressure of 
hunger, men have sunk into crime and to all the moral 
degradation it involves. To them, the necessities of 
animal life have debased all that gives to human life its 
distinctive worth. Moreover, man’s dependence on his 
fellows, frequently upon bad men, tempts him to seek 
their favour by doing that which his better judgment 
disapproves, thus making him in some sense their slave. 
Most men seem to be, from infancy and throughout life, 



Lect. XXI] ITS RELATION TO THINGS AROUND 191 

helpless victims to an environment hostile to self-respect, 
intelligence, and morality. 

We notice however that in Christian nations much 
has been done, and more is done each year, to 
rescue man from the evil influences of his environment. 
Facilities for communication have lessened the cost of 
food, and have made famine in the more developed 
states impossible, and in all Christian states less likely 
and less terrible. The medical art has done much to 
lessen human suffering: and the mutual care of man 
for man protects in increasing measure each individual. 
Throughout Christendom man is conquering his sur¬ 
roundings, rescuing himself from their control, and 
making them subservient to his well-being. Much is 
also done, by good government, to rescue men from the 
unjust violence of their fellows; and to unite the body 
politic, in its larger and smaller circles, in efforts for the 
general good, and thus indirectly for the good of each 
individual. And this progress in the past, still continuing, 
encourages a hope that man’s environment, material 
and social, so long a fetter holding him down, will 
become, to a degree far greater than hitherto, helpful to 
his pleasure and well-being. 

In spite of this hope, the burden of life, caused by the 
constitution of the body and by man’s surroundings as 
a whole, presses very heavily on many loyal servants of 
Christ We now ask, To what extent is man’s relation 
to his environment directly affected by the new life 
breathed by the Spirit of God into those who believe 

the Gospel? 

14 



THE NEW LIFE IN 


[Part III 


191 

This question, Paul answers by asserting in Rom. 
viii. 28, after an exposition of the Gospel, that “ to those 
who love God all things are working together for good.” 
The words following, “ to them that are called according 
to purpose,” suggest that this harmonious and beneficent 
working is an accomplishment of a divine, and therefore 
eternal, purpose embracing both man and his environ¬ 
ment. In v. 29 this purpose is further described as a 
foreordination of the called ones to be conformed to 
the image of the Son of God. In other words, under¬ 
neath the apparent conflict and confusion around us 
there is harmony; and underneath an apparently hostile 
environment there is universal beneficence: “ all things 
work together; for good.” This is further illustrated, 
in the verses following, by the song of triumph in which 
culminates Paul’s exposition of the Gospel of Christ and 
of the new life resulting therefrom. He gives two lists 
(v. 35 and vv. 38, 39) of apparently hostile elements in 
the Christian’s environment, and declares that they 
cannot separate him from the love of God in Christ and 
that therefore in them he is more than conqueror. Of 
the reality and completeness of that victory, this song of 
triumph is itself indisputable proof. 

This glowing argument implies that the universe, 
including natural forces and bad men, is in the hands of 
God, that it is part of His original purpose of blessing, 
and that therefore it cannot hinder, but must help 
forward, the accomplishment of that purpose. 

Similar teaching is found in the recorded words of 
Christ. In Matt. vi. 24-34, after warning of the im- 



Lict. XXI] ITS RELATION TO THINGS AROUND 


193 


possibility of a service divided between God and 
Mammon, He teaches that our Father in Heaven knows, 
and will supply, the bodily needs of His children on 
earth, thus leaving them no place for anxiety. In John 
ix. 3, Christ says that a case of blindness from birth, 
doubtless a result of natural causes, was designed to 
accomplish a divine purpose : “ in order that the works 
of God may be manifested in him.” Similarly, the sick¬ 
ness of Lazarus (ch. xi. 4) was “ for the glory of God, in 
order that the Son of God may be glorified thereby.” 
All this implies that natural forces are working out a 
divine purpose of blessing. 

Under the earlier covenant Joseph says, as recorded 
in Gen. 1 . 12, in reference to his brothers’ great sin in 
selling him as a slave, “Ye meant evil against me ; but 
God meant it for good .... to save much people alive.” 
That the universe is in the hands of God, and that 
all its forces, natural and human, are working out His 
purposes, underlies the teaching of the whole Bible. 

Even beyond the limits of the Sacred Nation and 
the influence of Christianity, similar teaching is not un¬ 
known. So Plato, Republic , bk. x. p. 613 a : “ This must 
be our notion of the just man that, even when he is in 
poverty or sickness or any other seeming misfortune, to 
him these things will turn out in the end for good, living 
or even dead. For by the gods he is cared for, whoever 
he be, that eagerly wishes to become righteous and by 
practising virtue to become like God so far as this is 
possible to man ” This quotation might be supported by 
many others from the best literature of the ancient world. 



194 


THE NEW LIFE IN 


[Part III 


To the race as a whole many benefits accrue from 
elements in man’s environment which are unpleasant 
and painful and at first sight injurious. Man’s com¬ 
pulsory conflict with nature for food and other bodily 
necessities has wonderfully stimulated industry and in¬ 
telligence ; and has thus been a fruitful source of progress. 
And it has frequently developed the highest moral 
qualities. Men have submitted to toil and pain and 
have dared danger in order to provide for their wives 
and little ones; and have thus themselves risen in 
moral worth. Unquestionably the hardships of life have 
contributed immensely to the higher education of the 
race. Even misery has evoked a pity and beneficence 
which have greatly enriched the benefactors. And if 
the general environment of man, which taken as a whole 
has been so beneficial to him, be from God, we need not 
doubt that this education of the race was part of the 
purpose of that environment. In this general sense, to 
the race as a whole, many influences apparently hostile 
are working together for good. 

Paul’s statement quoted above that all things are 
working for good is limited to “ those that love God.” 
Benefits to others lay outside the Apostle’s thought. 
This limitation is easily understood. For love is the 
normal relation of an intelligent creature to his Creator. 
He is worthy of our love; and has revealed Himself 
to us in order that we may love Him. Not to love 
Him, is not to know Him. Where there is no love to 
God, man’s normal development, intellectual and moral, 
has been hindered. This implies resistance to God, and 



Lect. XXI] ITS RELATION TO THINGS AROUND 


195 


discord. On the other hand, to those who have accepted 
this normal development there is harmony with God and 
consequently harmony with all that God has made. 

This teaching of Paul has been again and again 
verified. Thousands of men and women have borne 
bravely and cheerfully the burdens of life : and their 
endurance has developed in them a nobility of spirit, 
a trust in God, and an experience of His all-sufficient 
grace abundantly worth all that they have endured. 
Even the malice of bad men, failing to evoke in them 
resentment and thus to do them the only real injury, 
has wrought in them patience and forbearance like 
that of Christ, and has thus been a source of spiritual 
gain. The pleasant things of life have not obscured the 
better things of the life to come, but have prompted 
gratitude to God. And wealth has been a means of 
advancing His Kingdom. Thus amid light and shadow 
sunshine and storm, aided by both and by its entire 
environment, the New Life in Christ makes progress. 

This blessed experience is complete proof that man’s 
entire environment, near and remote, is from God. For 
this harmonious and far-reaching co-operation of forces 
and influences so diverse cannot be a mere fortunate 
accident. It is manifestly designed : and the Designer 
can be no other than the intelligent Author of the 
universe. Thus the moral and spiritual benefits actually 
derived by the servants of Christ from their material 
surroundings are additional evidence that the material 
universe is an offspring of an intelligent and righteous 
Creator. That matter aids the highest development of 



196 


THE NEW LIFE IN 


[Part III 


mind, is decisive proof that matter sprang from Mind. 
To know that the complicated tissue of forces and 
influences around, at whose mercy we seem to be, is 
from God as a part of His eternal purpose of mercy to 
us, and is working out that purpose, is to be at peace 
amid the storms of life and under the shadow of death. 

It is now evident that, to those who put faith in 
Christ and yield themselves to the controlling and 
moulding influence of His love, the world around is 
altogether changed ; or rather its aspect is so completely 
changed that its practical influence is also changed. 
Once the world around, material and human, was their 
lord. Upon the smile of their fellows and upon the 
chances of fortune hung their highest interests. And 
this dependence on their environment was a degrading 
bondage. Now all is changed. They have learned 
the secret of the universe. They have seen the hand 
of a Father in heaven controlling and guiding the 
forces of nature and of the social life of men, forces so 
mighty, sometimes apparently so destructive; and they 
know now that all these things are their servants for 
good. This discovery has broken the material and 
social fetters under which formerly they lay bound, and 
has made them free indeed. This change has come 
through the Gospel of Christ; and therefore, as we saw 
in my last volume, through His death upon the cross. 
We can therefore say with Paul, in Gal. vi. 14, pointing 
to a vanquished enemy and lord, and to the cross on 
which Christ died, “ Through which to me the world is 
crucified, and I to the world.” For through His death 



Lect. XXI] ITS RELATION TO THINGS AROUND 


*97 


the world has lost its power over them, and their old 
life of bondage has ceased. Or, they may say, as in 
2 Cor. v. 17, “ If anyone be in Christ, he is a new 
creature; the old things have passed away, behold 
they have become new.” 

We have now seen that the New Life, by putting 
man right with God, has put him right with all else. To 
the unsaved, within and around them was discord, con¬ 
fusion, and ruin ; each pursuing his own selfish aim, and 
therefore different aims, and thus coming into collision 
each against others. But they who, led by the Spirit of 
God, have felt the magic power of the manifested love 
of Christ and have thus been drawn to Him in loyal 
devotion, have by their loyalty to the one Lord been 
united, each to others, in harmonious co-operation. 
Although surrounded by influences tending to sin, in¬ 
fluences strengthened by their own past indulgence in sin, 
they are preserved from sin by the power of the Spirit 
of God dwelling in their hearts. The Law, which they 
once deliberately or carelessly broke, or painfully and 
vainly endeavoured to keep while it condemned them 
for past disobedience, has now become a lamp to their 
feet and a light to their path, and a song in the house of 
their pilgrimage. For the Spirit who wrote that Law in 
the Moral Sense of all men, and guided the writers of 
the Sacred Books of Israel, dwells in their hearts as the 
animating principle of a new life. And the universe 
around, under whose tyranny they once trembled, is now 
seen to be to them a minister of God for good. 


) 



LECTURE XXII 

THE CHRISTIAN CONFLICT 

I N the foregoing lectures, the New Life has been 
represented as a supernatural inbreathing from 
God, and the believer has been in the main repre¬ 
sented as passive and receptive. We saw, however, in 
Lect. XV., that this divine inbreathing evokes in man 
the intelligent and ceaseless activity of loyal service to 
Christ, showing itself in efforts to save those for whom 
He died and to build up the eternal Kingdom of God. 
We shall now find that it evokes also the intense effort of 
personal spiritual conflict. This conflict and the conse¬ 
quent victory are a needful counterpart to the picture 
given in the last lecture. 

In Luke xiii. 24 our Lord exhorts “ Strive (aycovl&crOe, 
literally agonize , i.e. contend as an athlete against an 
antagonist) to enter in through the narrow door ; because 
many will seek to enter in and will not have strength.” 
This implies that the blessings promised by Christ are 
to be obtained only by strenuous personal effort. 

Similar teaching is very common with Paul. So 
Phil. ii. 12 : “ work out your own salvation with fear and 
trembling.” These last words suggest anxious care, as in 

198 


Lect. XXII] 


THE CHRISTIAN CONFLICT 


*99 


a matter serious and difficult. This element of Paul’s 
teaching is frequently embodied in a favourite metaphor 
taken from the Greek athletic contests, a metaphor 
suggested in Luke xiii. 24. A good example is found 
in 1 Cor. ix. 23-27. Paul says that he uses all sorts of 
efforts to save others in order that he may himself share 
the blessings of the Gospel, implying that upon his 
efforts to save others depends his own salvation. This 
he explains by saying that both his readers and himself 
are athletes contending for a “ crown ” or garland ; and 
reminds them that every athlete makes everything bow 
to this object The words “ in all things self-controlled ” 
refer probably to the ten months of training during 
which the athlete submitted to severe regimen in order 
to fit himself for the contest. Paul finds an adversary 
in his own body, which last he leads about like a slave 
lest even he, a herald, be rejected as unworthy of the 
prize. In Phil. iii. 12-14, we have a picture of Paul as 
a racer pressing forward, forgetting all else, to the goal. 
So 1 Tim. vi. 12: “contend the good contest of the 
faith ; lay hold of the life eternal.” This implies that 
eternal life can be obtained only as the athlete gains a 
prize, viz. by personal conflict and victory. In 2 Tim. 
iv. 8, Paul speaks of the conflict as over: “ the good 
contest I have contended, the course I have finished, 
the faith I have kept; henceforth there is laid up for me 
the crown of righteousness.” 

In the athletic contests of Greece, a chief factor was 
the antagonist or competitor. Only by victory over 
another who sought to take away the prize, could 



200 


THE WAY OF HOLINESS 


Part III 


the prize be won. So in Eph. vi. 12 Paul reminds his 
readers that they are wrestling against superhuman 
opponents. In view of these antagonists, he somewhat 
changes the metaphor and bids them put on the armour 
provided by God. This military metaphor meets us 
again in 2 Tim. ii. 3, 4: “ endure hardship as a good 
soldier of Jesus Christ.” The change emphasises the 
element common to the two metaphors, viz. intense 
effort against a terrible antagonist. 

The Christian race is mentioned in Heb. xii. 1. The 
antagonist appears again in I Peter v. 8, 9: “ be sober, 
be watchful ; your adversary the Devil, as a roaring 
lion, walks about seeking whom he may devour; whom 
resist, steadfast by faith.” 

The same idea of conflict with a personal foe finds 
expression in the words “overcome the wicked one” 
in 1 John ii. 13, 14; and “overcome the world” in 
ch. v. 4, 5. The word overcome is conspicuous by its 
repetition in Rev. ii. 7, 11, 17, 26, iii. 5, 12, 21, at the 
close of each of the seven letters to the Churches in 
Asia. It occurs also in the same connection of thought 
in Rev. xii. 11, xv. 2, xxi. 7. A stronger form of the 
same word is found in Rom. viii. 37, “ we more than 
overcome ; ” and a cognate word in 1 Cor. xv. 57, “ Who 
gives us the victory .” 

Thus in the various types of New Testament teaching 
the New Life is depicted, with conspicuous and emphatic 
repetition, as a strenuous effort evoked by conflict 
against personal and tremendous antagonists. 

This picture is confirmed by our own experience. In 



Lect. XXII] 


THE CHRISTIAN CONFLICT 


201 


our efforts to do right and to advance the kingdom of 
Christ, we meet resistance from our general environment, 
from our fellows, and in our own hearts. The moralists 
of all ages have depicted the path of righteousness as 
beset by foes. And still more terrible opposition has 
stood in the path of those who have endeavoured to win 
the world for Christ. The severity of this opposition 
suggests irresistibly that it is supported by superhuman 
enemies of God and man. In this conviction, the 
language of the New Testament has been re-echoed by 
the servants of God in all ages. 

Fortunately, in this conflict, the Christian believer 
does not stand alone. The superhuman antagonists are 
met and overcome by superhuman help. So I John 

iv. 4: “ ye have overcome them ; because greater is He 
that is in you than he that is in the world.” Also I Cor. 
xv. 57 * “to God be thanks, who gives us the victory 
through our Lord Jesus Christ: ” and Rom. viii. 37, 
“ we more than overcome through Him that loved us.” 
The two elements are placed conspicuously side by side 
in Phil. ii. 12, 13: “work out your own salvation; for 
God it is who works in you.” Speaking of his own 
apostolic work, Paul says in Col. i. 29, “ for which end I 
also labour, striving (literally agonizing , as in 1 Tim. 
vi. 12, Luke xiii. 24) according to His working which 
works in me with power.” Like all else in the New 
Life, this victory is a result of the death of Christ, and 
is conditioned by faith. So Rev. xii. 11, “ they overcame 
him because of the blood of the Lamb: ” and 1 John 

v. 4, 5, “ this is the victory which has overcome the 



202 


THE WAY OF HOLINESS 


[Part III 


world, even our faith : ” Eph. vi. 16, “ the shield of faith, 
with which ye will be able to quench all the burning 
darts of the wicked one.” 

This latter teaching changes altogether the whole 
aspect of the moral conflict; just as in Christ the 
believer’s relation to the moral Law and to his environ¬ 
ment is changed. In days gone by, the conflict was 
unavailing revolt against a deadly despotism. Referring 
to his former life as a devout Pharisee, Paul writes in 
Rom. vii. 23, “ I see another law in the members of my 
body carrying on war against the law of my mind and 
taking me captive to the law of sin which is in the 
members of my body. Wretched man am I. Who 
will rescue me?” This cry has been changed into 
‘‘thanks to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.” The 
fight continues. But it has become a march of triumph. 
The real conflict was decided long ago in Christ. It is 
our privilege now to appropriate day by day the vic¬ 
tory then gained. 

It is of the utmost importance to keep ever and 
equally in view these two aspects of the Christian 
conflict. We are still in an enemy’s country. In every 
object around us, and in our own wayward hearts, foes 
lie in ambush ever ready to ensnare and destroy us. 
We therefore need constant watchfulness. But we watch 
as for conquered and powerless foes. For, from another 
point of view, the battle is over. It was finished when 
the Conqueror returned to His home on high. We there¬ 
fore day by day go down into conflict against enemies 
mightier than ourselves with perfect confidence. For 



Lect. XXII] 


THE CHRISTIAN CONFLICT 


203 


we arc guarded by the power of God. The only question 
now is, not whether we can overcome by any moral 
resolution of our own, but whether we can venture to 
accept the promise of victory. Then are we more than 
conquerors. 

The complete victory given by Christ to those who 
believe in Him, fills them, even in the midst of conflict, 
with profound peace. We are at peace because under¬ 
neath us are everlasting arms. This is “ the peace of 
God.” For it is not only His gift but an overflow of the 
eternal calm which fills the breast of God. And, being 
divine in its source, it “ passes all understanding ” of those 
who observe, and even of those who experience it. For 
it is often found in circumstances which seem to make 
peace impossible. Moreover, to use a military metaphor, 
it “ guards the heart,” the inmost source of purpose and 
action, “and the mind,” the home often of troubled 
thoughts. For they who are kept in peace by the power 
of God are safe from many spiritual dangers which injure 
others. And this rest is “ in Christ Jesus.” 

Thus is the Christian life, looked at from one point of 
view, a conflict sometimes very fierce; and, from another 
point of view, profound peace. This peace is the rest of 
victory won for us by Christ, victory over His foes and 
ours. It is the beginning, and the pledge, of our eternal 
rest; the dawn of the eternal day, and the glad harbinger 
of the sunrise. 



LECTURE XXIII 

PERSEVERANCE IN THE NEW LIFE 


I N the midst of the conflict of life Paul looked forward 
with joyful confidence, as all his epistles attest, to 
final victory over all enemies and to entrance into the 
eternal Kingdom of God. So Rom. v. 2, “ we exult in 
hope of the glory of God ch. viii. 18, “ the sufferings of 
the present season are of no worth in view of the glory 
which will be revealed in us ; ” Phil. i. 6, “ being confident 
of this very thing, that He who has begun in you a 
good work will complete it until the day of Jesus 
Christ2 Tim. iv. 18, “the Lord will rescue me from 
every evil work, and will save me into His heavenly 
Kingdom.” 

This salvation is, as we have already learned in 
Lect. XVI., from the first turning to God till final victory, 
altogether a work of the Spirit of God in man. But we 
have also seen in Lect. XVII. that it is conditional on 
man’s faith, i.e. on his self-surrender to divine influences 
leading up to repentance and faith. That this self¬ 
surrender is not a result of irresistible influences but is 
conditioned only by man’s free choice, is attested, as we 
shall see in Part IV., by our own self-condemnation for 


Lect. XXIII] PERSEVERANCE IN THE NEW LIFE 


205 


not having earlier yielded to divine influences of which 
we were conscious, but which we resisted; and by our 
entire estimate of ourselves and others. This inference 
is also implied in many warnings running throughout 
the Bible. 

Paul teaches also that, not only entrance into, but 
continuance in, the New Life depends upon ourselves 
and upon our continued faith ; that it is terribly possible 
that they who have once enjoyed actual spiritual life 
may yet fall away and finally perish. And, in this, he is 
supported by the recorded words of Christ. 

In Rom. xi. 20-23 Paul teaches that some of the 
twigs of the olive tree were broken off because of their 
unbelief, and that his readers stand by faith. He bids 
them not to think high things but to fear, and warns 
that He who did not spare the natural branches will not 
spare them if they do not continue in His kindness ; 
and adds that, if the unbelieving ones do not continue 
in their unbelief, God will restore them. Now Paul’s 
unbelieving countrymen were certainly in peril of final 
ruin. For no less peril would prompt Paul, on their 
behalf, almost to wish himself separated from Christ. 
And their fall is held up to his readers as a warning of 
what will befall them if they do not continue in faith. 
Yet the Roman Christians, to whom Paul writes, are 
assumed to have actual spiritual life. For they have 
been “ reconciled to God,” and have “received the Spirit 
of adoption,” who “ bears witness that we are children of 
God : ” chs. v. 10, viii. 16. Otherwise they would perish 
whether they continue or not. The whole warning 



206 


PERSEVERANCE 


[Part III 


implies that the readers’ final salvation depends upon 
their maintaining their present spiritual position ; and 
that it is possible for them to fall from it and perish. 

In i Cor. ix. 23 Paul writes that he uses all means to 
save all he can in order to be himself a sharer, with his 
converts, of the blessings of the Gospel. This can only 
mean that his own salvation depends upon his fidelity to 
his divine vocation. Pie speaks (vv. 24-27) of his readers 
and himself as athletes contending for a prize; and is 
influenced by a fear that, after having preached to 
others, he may himself be rejected. The warning 
implied in this fear, Paul supports in ch. x. 1-12 by the 
example of ancient Israel, of whom all passed the Red 
Sea but very few entered the promised land. Upon 
these examples he bases a final warning, “ let him that 
thinks that he stands beware lest he fall.” This warning, 
like the last, would have no meaning if the possession of 
actual spiritual life necessarily ensured final salvation. 

Similar teaching is in John xv. 6 traced to the lips of 
Christ: “ If any one abide not in Me, he has been cast 
outside like the branch and become withered ; and they 
are gathering them and casting them into the fire and 
they are burning.” These branches must have had 
actual spiritual life ; for, as above, all depends upon 
continuance in their present state. Moreover, every 
dead branch has once been living. The branches cannot 
be mere outward professors. For such will perish 
whether they continue or not. 

The above teaching is balanced by that in John x. 28: 
“ they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them 



Lect. XXIII] IN THE NEW LIFE 207 

out of My hand.” This passage is easily harmonised 
with that quoted above. For it refers evidently to sheep 
of the flock of Christ; and asserts that no hostile 
violence will tear them from Christ. Just so Paul says 
in Rom. viii. 38 that neither death nor life can separate 
us from the love of God. But nothing is said here 
about the possibility of a sheep wandering away from 
the flock, and thus perishing. Similarly, the terrible 
doom pronounced in Rev. xxi. 8 against " all the liars ” 
does not shut out the possibility that those guilty of 
falsehood may turn from it and be saved. 

It is now evident that the New Life in Christ, which 
is from beginning to end a work of God in man, is never¬ 
theless altogether conditional, both in its beginning and 
continuance, upon man’s faith, i.e. upon his voluntary 
surrender to divine influences which, if yielded to, will 
lead him to life. Consequently, the Christian life is an 
intermingling of confidence and salutary fear. We rest 
in Christ to-day. And we know that no hostile power 
can force us from Him. The peace of God guards our 
hearts and minds in Christ. Therefore we are safe. 
But we know that if we were to leave our impregnable 
refuge we should fall a prey to our adversaries. We are 
therefore ever on our guard against whatever would 
decoy us from it 

We now see the intense reality of the Christian con¬ 
flict described in Lect. XXII. Upon our faithfulness in 
it depends our eternal salvation. 


15 



LECTURE XXIV. 


SPIRITUAL GROWTH, 

E have now learnt that God receives into His 



favour, and into His family as sonfe, all who 


believe the good news announced by Christ; that He 
gives to them the Spirit of His Son to be in them the 
animating principle of a new life of victory over sin 
and of unreserved devotion to God like the devotion of 
Christ to God ; and that this purpose is realised in them 
by faith, and in proportion to their faith. We have also 
learned that continuance in the New Life and entrance 
into the eternal Kingdom of God are conditioned on 
continued faith. It now remains to show that, according 
to the teaching of Paul, which in this point is verified in 
the experience of all earnest servants of Christ, these 
blessings, which may be in a measure appropriated at 
once by faith, receive their development by continuous 
growth. 

In many cases the faith which appropriates justifica¬ 
tion is itself a gradual growth. By degrees men venture 
to accept, and apply to themselves, and appropriate, the 
great truth that God receives into His favour all who 
put faith in Christ, and that therefore He now receives 


Lect. XXIV] 


SPIRITUAL GROWTH 


309 

them. In other cases, the light streams in almost at 
once. But probably in every case there has been a 
gradual preparation for this sudden illumination. Still 
more gradual, usually, is the apprehension and appro¬ 
priation and realisation of the more wonderful truth that 
God, who claims the unreserved devotion of all His 
servants, works in them by His Spirit and by inward 
contact with Christ, here and now, the devotion He 
claims. But, be this truth ever so fully and firmly 
grasped, it leaves room for, and demands, a continuous 
and progressive further apprehension. And, whenever 
and however grasped, its apprehension creates a definite 
stage of spiritual growth. 

The definiteness of this stage of development in 
Christ is suggested by the Greek aorist tense in I Thess. 
v. 23, “may the God of peace Himself sanctify you all 
completein 2 Cor. vii. I, “let us cleanse ourselves 
from all pollution and in Rom. xii. 1, “ I exhort you 
. . . to present your bodies a sacrifice, living, holy, accept¬ 
able to God.” That all these exhortations are addressed 
to persons recognised as justified and adopted sons of 
God and as already possessing the Spirit of God, proves 
that they describe a higher stage of spiritual life, and 
one sufficiently definite to be an object of thought and 
faith. This higher stage involves growth in the New 
Life. 

Writing to his young converts at Thessalonica, from 
whom he had been suddenly snatched away, Paul 
describes himself in 1 Thess. iii. 10 as “begging to see 
your face, and to equip fully the deficiencies of your faith/* 



210 


SPIRITUAL GROWTH 


[Part III 


The word rendered “equip-fully” denotes (eg. Matt. iv. 21) 
complete fitting out for work. The faith of the Thessa- 
lonican Christians was already real and active : for Paul 
speaks in ch. i. 3 of their “ work of faith.” But it was 
capable of, and needed, a firmer grasp and wider com¬ 
pass to embrace in wider measure, and more fully to 
appropriate, the purposes and promises of God. And in 
this broadening and strengthening of his readers’ faith, 
Paul hopes to help them. A hoped-for result of this 
development of their faith is described in v, 12 : “ may 
the Lord make you to abound in love one to another 
and to all men.” Paul thus prays that Christ may work 
in his readers an abundant development of the unique 
Christian virtue of love, a love embracing both fellow- 
Christians and the whole race. He thus indicates a line 
along which the servants of Christ may seek, and may 
expect, unlimited progress. 

News from Thessalonica assured the gladdened heart 
of Paul that his prayer for his readers was not in vain. 
So 2 Thess. i. 3: “ we ought to thank God always on 
your behalf. . . because your faith increases beyond 
measure and the love of each one of you all increases.” 
We have here, still going on, actual progress both in 
faith and love. 

In Rom. i. 11, Paul writes to the Roman Christians, 
“ I long to see you, in order that 1 may impart to you 
some spiritual gift, in order that ye may be established.” 
Such spiritual gifts, producing stability in the New Life, 
involve spiritual growth. Already, on p. 179, we have 
found in Rom. viii.. 13, “ye are putting to death the 



Lect. XXIV] 


SPIRITUAL GROWTH 


211 


actions of the body.” a gradual destruction of the inward 
and hostile power of sin. This reveals and involves 
spiritual growth. And all spiritual growth weakens 
the power of sin. For the Spirit of God, permeating 
and moulding more and more our entire thought and 
life, reveals with increasing clearness the essential evil 
and hideousness of sin, and thus destroys its power to 
deceive us. Moreover, every good act tends to form 
a right habit, and thus to weaken contrary habits. 
There is no surer mark of mature spiritual life than 
an increasing sensitiveness to, and recoil from, every 
form of evil. 

In Phil. i. 6 Paul expresses a confident hope that He 
who has begun in the readers a good work will complete 
it. This reminds us that all spiritual life on earth is but 
a beginning of something which needs completion ; and 
assures us that He who has begun will continue and 
complete. The completion required is further described 
in v. 9, where Paul prays that his readers’ “ love may 
more and more abound in understanding and all percep¬ 
tion,” with the further aim that they may “ put to the 
test ” and thus approve “ the more excellent things.” 
A still further aim is stated in vu. lob , n, viz. that this 
spiritual intelligence may mould their character, giving 
spiritual security and a rich harvest of blessing: “ that 
ye may be sincere and without stumbling till the day of 
Christ, filled with fruit of righteousness.” We have here 
definite mention of an increase of knowledge, a con¬ 
spicuous feature of this passage and of this Third Group 
of Epistles as compared with i Thess. iii. io. We notice 



212 


SPIRITUAL GROWTH 


[Part III 


that love always tends to develop intelligence, for we use 
our best intelligence for those we love. And intelligence 
increases immensely the practical value of love. 

In Phil. iii. 12 Paul gives a graphic picture of his own 
spiritual progress. He does not look upon himself as 
having “ already obtained ” what he desires, or as having 
already reached his goal. Like a racer he is pressing 
on, to grasp something as yet beyond him, to lay hold 
of that for which Christ has laid hold of him. Forgetting 
all present acquirements, he presses forward, with a 
racer’s intense effort, to grasp the prize. These words 
imply that the normal state of the servants of Christ is 
progress resulting from intense and sustained effort in 
one direction. 

In Eph. iv. 13, 14 we have “ a full-grown man ” con¬ 
trasted with “ babes.” These last are described as 
“ tossed like waves and carried about by every wind of 
teaching in the craft of men.” But the ascended Christ 
gave to His Church the various orders of pastors and 
teachers, for its full equipment, and in order that, speak¬ 
ing truth in love, we may grow up into Him in all 
things, from whom as Head, and by the mutual help of 
the various members, the whole body grows and builds 
up itself in love. The phrase “ grow into Christ ” 
suggests that spiritual development places us in closer 
union with our Lord. 

The sublime prayer in Eph. iii. 14-19, on behalf of 
men already made alive and brought near through 
Christ, marks out the direction of spiritual growth. 
As links in that chain of blessing, we note a fuller 



Lect. XXIV] 


SPIRITUAL GROWTH 


213 


comprehension of Christ’s love to us, resulting in a 
fulness tending towards the fulness of God. 

In Heb. v. 12-14 we have again (cp. 1 Cor. iii. 2) the 
contrast of babes requiring milk and full grown men 
needing solid food. The food required is specified: 
“ because of the time ye ought to be teachers; yet ye 
have need to be taught which are the rudiments of the 
beginning of the oracles of God.” This reminds us that, 
as with children, so with the servants of Christ, health 
is accompanied by growth. 

From the above teaching we learn that faith in Christ 
is capable of increase as it embraces more and more 
extensively, and grasps more firmly, the promises of 
God. This increasing faith reveals with increasing 
clearness the love of God manifested in the death of 
Christ, and thus evokes increasing love to Him who first 
loved us. The love thus revealed will be enriched with 
increasing perception of moral distinctions and of the 
purposes of God for man ; for faith is the hand which 
takes hold of all the revelations of God. This growing 
faith and intelligence and love will change and raise our 
whole nature; and while so doing will unite us in closer 
fellowship with Christ. 

In 1 John ii. 12-14, we read of little children, young 
men, and fathers, evidently successive grades in the 
Christian life. 

That the Four Gospels add nothing directly to the 
above teaching, need not surprise us. Our Lord taught 
the rudimentary principles of the New Life, to men in 
whom, before the gift of the Holy Spirit, (cp. John vii. 39,) 



214 


SPIRITUAL GROWTH 


[Part III 


that life was necessarily immature. But His teaching 
involves and suggests growth. Further teaching was left, 
as need should arise, to the Spirit whom the departing 
Son promised to His disciples. The Book of Acts tells 
the story of the founding of the various Churches, but 
does not say much about the progressive development of 
individuals. This was for the more part left to the great 
Apostle who cared for his many converts as a father for 
the education of his children ; and who, while dealing 
with the many details of actual church life, gives 
incidentally most important teaching about the spiritual 
growth of the servants of Christ 



LECTURE XXV 


THE MEANS OF GRACE. PRAYER 


W E have learnt in Lect. XVI. that the New Life 
in Christ is breathed into and maintained in 
man by God through the agency of the Holy Spirit. 
We come now to consider certain special channels 
appointed by God to be the ordinary avenues through 
which this new life is received and sustained and 
developed. We shall find that, just as there are definite 
organs through which the spirit of man communicates 
with others, so are there special channels through which 
God imparts to men spiritual blessing. 

We have seen that faith is a condition of all the 
benefits of the New Covenant Now, faith in God 
implies that God has spoken to man, and that the Word 
of God has been brought to the ears and intelligence of 
the believer. Hence Paul asks in Rom. x. 14, “ How 
are they to believe Him whom they have not heard ? 
But how are they to hear without a preacher ? ” Chief 
therefore among the means of grace must be the pro¬ 
clamation of the good news of salvation. Consequently, 
as recorded in Mark xvi. 15, Christ bade the Apostles 
" proclaim the Gospel to the whole creation.” So Paul 

•z5 


216 


THE MEANS OF GRACE 


[Part III 


in I Cor. i. 23, “ we proclaim Christ crucified ; 99 and in 
v. 21, “God was pleased by means of the foolishness of 
the proclamation to save those that believe.” Similarly 
v. 18: “ the word of the cross ... to us who are being 
saved is a power of God.” 

Inasmuch as the Gospel is complex and many-sided, 
its intelligent reception requires not only proclamation 
but continued teaching. Consequently, Christ bade the 
Apostles, as recorded in Mark xxviii. 20, to bring all the 
nations as pupils into His school (jia 6 r]jevaaTe irdvra ra 
edvrj and adds “ teaching them to observe all things so 
many as I have commanded you.” This command, 
Paul describes himself in Col. i. 28 as obeying : “ Christ, 
whom we announce, instructing every man and teaching 
every man in all wisdom, in order that we may present 
every man mature in Christ.” Here consecutive teach¬ 
ing is spoken of as a means of Christian maturity. And 
in harmony with this method of spiritual development, 
we find in the apostolic churches teachers, and a 
divinely-given order of teachers. In the Church at 
Antioch, as we read in Acts xiii. I, were “ prophets and 
teachers.” In I Cor. xii. 28 we read that “ God put in 
the Church, first apostles, secondly prophets, thirdly 
teachers.” And again in Eph. iv. n, of the risen 
Saviour we read, “ Himself gave the apostles, the 
prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers.” 

To those who have not before heard it, the first 
announcement of the Gospel brings the truth revealed in 
Christ to bear upon the mind and heart. Subsequent 
teaching widens and deepens the impression thus made. 



Lect. XXV] 


THE MEANS OF GRACE 


217 


Since the truth revealed under the Old Covenant and 
that revealed in Christ have permanent embodiment in 
the Old and New Testaments, careful study of Holy 
Scripture has been in all ages a rich nourishment of the 
spiritual life. Through the silent page God speaks to 
the devout student, and through the written word His 
power works in us, enriching and strengthening. We 
thus sit, not only at the feet of the Apostles, but at the 
feet of Christ. By giving to us, through the agency of 
the Holy Spirit prompting and guarding the writers, 
correct records of the teaching of Christ and authorita¬ 
tive expositions of that teaching by the Apostles, and 
various literary embodiments of spiritual life under the 
Old Covenant, God ordained the study of Holy Scripture 
to be an all-important means of grace. 

Closely related to the preached and written word are 
the two rites ordained by Christ for all His servants, 
which, as visible embodiments of important Gospel truth, 
we may speak of as the symbolic word. Christ ordained 
the Lord’s Supper to be a memorial of His approaching 
death ; and, while giving the command to bring the 
nations into His school, He bade His disciples to baptize 
them. These plain commands made Baptism and the 
Lord’s Supper imperative on all the servants of Christ. 
And, if so, they must be channels through which the 
Spirit of God conveys supernatural good to men. A 
fuller exposition of this benefit is reserved for my next 
volume on The Church of Christ . But thousands can 
testify to great spiritual gain derived from the sacred 
meal ordained by Christ, and from the important teach- 



2 l8 


THE MEANS OF GRACE 


[Part III 


ing embodied, whether administered to converts from 
heathenism or to an unconscious infant of Christian 
parents, in the rite of Baptism. 

In all the above-mentioned means of grace, revealed 
truth in various forms is the immediate instrument used 
by the Spirit of God to convey to man spiritual blessing. 
Another special and definite and all-important means of 
grace, of a different kind, yet closely related to those 
just mentioned, now demands attention. 

In all religions PRAYER is offered to an unseen Helper. 
Its wide prevalence bears witness to man’s deep sense 
of dependence on a superhuman power who is thus 
accessible to man. It is a conspicuous feature of the 
Old and New Testaments. 

As examples, I may quote Ex. xxxii. II-14, xxxiii. 23, 
where Moses pleads with God for Israel when guilty of 
a great sin, and in answer to his prayer the nation is 
spared ; and Isa. xxxvii. 14-35, where, in a time of great 
national peril, Hezekiah appeals to God for help, and 
his prayer is answered. The Old Testament contains 
other similar cases. The Book of Psalms presents many 
examples of earnest petition and supplication, which 
have been most helpful in all ages to the prayers even 
of the servants of Christ. 

The incarnate Son spent in prayer, as we read in 
Luke vi. 12, the night before the appointment of the 
twelve Apostles. In Mark xiv. 36 we have a pathetic 
example of His prayer for deliverance from impending 
and overwhelming agony : “ Abba, Father, all things 



Lect. XXV] 


PRAYER 


219 


are possible to Thee; take away this cup from Me; 
nevertheless not what I will, but what Thou wilt.” In 
John xvii. 11, 15, 17, 20-23, Luke xxii. 32, Christ prays 
for His disciples. 

In His great inaugural address, our Lord gives His 
broad sanction to prayer by saying, as recorded in Matt, 
vii. 7, “ Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye 
shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you : for 
every one that asks receives.” This last assertion is sup¬ 
ported by a comparison between human parents who, 
when asked, give good things to their children and our 
“ Father in heaven ” who “ much more will give good 
things to those who ask Him.” In a similar comparison 
in Luke xi. 13, Christ argues specifically that our “ Father 
from heaven will give the Holy Spirit to those who ask 
Him.” To the disciples asking Him to teach them 
to pray, Christ gave (Luke xi. 2) a form of prayer, a 
shorter version of a form embodied in Matt. vi. 9-13 in 
the Sermon on the Mount. The close and even verbal 
similarity of these two forms reveals their firm place in 
the thought and memory of His earliest followers. 

On the eve of His betrayal, as recorded in John 
xiv. 13, 14, Christ promised, " Whatever ye ask in My 
name, I will do it, in order that the Father may be 
glorified in the Son. If ye ask anything in My name 
I will do it” Still more important is a promise recorded 
in ch. xv. 7 : “ If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in 
you, ask whatever ye will and it shall be yours.” So 
ch. xvi. 24: “ Hitherto ye have not asked anything in 
My name : ask and ye shall receive in order that your 



920 


THE MEANS OF GRACE 


[Part III 


joy may be made full.” This teaching is followed by 
the wonderful prayer of Christ in ch. xvii. 

A marked feature of his Epistles is Paul’s eager 
desire for his readers* prayers on his behalf. In 2 Thess. 
iii. i, 2 he asks young converts to pray for him “in 
order that the word of God may run and be glorified,” 
and in order that he “ may be rescued from unreasonable 
and bad men.” In 2 Cor. i. ii, his hope of continued 
deliverance from great peril is conditioned by his assur¬ 
ance that his readers are praying for him: “ while ye 
also are working together with us by prayer on our 
behalf.” In Rom. xv. 30, 31, he begs the Roman 
Christians to join with him in his struggle (literally, his 
agony or athletic contest) by prayers on his behalf, 
in order that he may be rescued from the unbelieving 
ones in Judaea and that his ministry for the saints may 
be successful. Similarly, in Col. iv. 12, Epaphras is 
described as struggling or agonising in his prayers on 
behalf of the Christians at Colossae. In each of these 
passages earnest prayer is compared to the intense effort 
of an athlete contending for a prize. The phrase 
“ wrestling in prayer ” reproduces exactly the Apostle’s 
idea. In Eph. vi. 19, 20, and Col. iv. 3, 4 he asks his 
readers’ prayers that God may enable him to preach 
boldly the Gospel of Christ In almost every epistle we 
have mention of Paul’s own unceasing prayers on behalf 
of each of the Churches founded by him. And in Eph. 
i. 16-23, iit 14-19 we have sublime specimens of these 
prayers. 

The above passages, and many others similar, leave 



Lect. XXV] 


PRAYER 


221 


no room for doubt that Christ, by example and precept, 
following earlier teachers, specially sanctioned prayer 
as a means of obtaining blessing from God. This is an 
assured historical result of our theological research. 

Christ’s sanction of prayer implies that it is the will of 
God that men ask for, and thus obtain, blessing from 
Him. And this implies that, by the ordinance of God, 
there are blessings to be obtained not otherwise than by 
prayer. We reverently ask, Why has God ordained 
prayer as a means of grace ? Not in order to acquaint 
God with man’s needs. For these, known very imper¬ 
fectly to the needy ones, are altogether known to God 
Not to persuade God to bless, as man pleads with man 
for some benefit which the other is reluctant to give. 
Our question returns to us, Why does God give, to 
those who ask, blessings which He does not give to 
others ? 

A partial answer is suggested by our Lord’s compari¬ 
son of our Father in heaven to parents on earth who 
give to children when they ask. Not unfrequently a 
mother makes asking a condition of receiving in order, 
by this gentle compulsion, to teach the child to speak 
and thus to evoke personal intercourse between parent 
and child. For the sake of the education involved in 
asking, good things which the child needs, and knows 
that he needs, are held back until asked for. Now it is 
matter of blessed experience that in prayer the children 
of God have intelligent intercourse with a Father in 
heaven. Thus, by personal contact of spirit with spirit, 
they obtain a consciousness, otherwise impossible, of the 



222 


THE MEANS OF GRACE 


[Part III 


presence of an unseen yet personal Companion and 
Helper. In such moments of prayer, men have ex¬ 
perienced the reality and nearness of God, sometimes in 
utter loneliness and helplessness, in a measure far more 
than compensating for the absence of all human com¬ 
panionship and help. This wonderful result points to a 
divine purpose. We cannot doubt that it was in order 
to evoke this personal intercourse with God, and thus 
give to man a fuller revelation of Himself, that God 
ordained prayer as a means of grace. 

Another reason may be suggested. We notice that, 
in the New Testament, prayer is closely connected with 
faith, and that faith is a condition of successful prayer. 
So Mark xi. 23,24: “ Whoever shall say to this mountain, 
Be taken up and cast into the sea, and shall not doubt in 
his heart but shall believe that what he says takes place, 
it shall be done for him. Because of this, I say to you, 
all things so many as in prayer ye ask, believe that ye 
have received them, and they shall be yours.” Similarly 
James i. 5,6: “ If any one lacks wisdom, let him ask from 
God . . . and it shall be given him. But let him ask in 
faith, nothing doubting. For he that doubts is like a 
wave of the sea driven by wind and tossed. Let not 
that man think that he shall receive anything from the 
Lord.” All this is in close harmony with the teaching 
of Paul and of Christ that the blessings of the New 
Covenant are obtained by faith. Now the promise that 
they who ask shall receive is a searching test of our 
faith. Many cannot believe that by merely asking 
they will receive : and, according to their unbelief, it 



Lecrr. XXV] 


PRAYER 


223 


is not done to them. Others venture to accept, as did 
Abraham, the promise of God. They ask, confidently 
expecting to receive : and what they expect, they obtain. 
In no way could implicit faith in God be put to a keener 
test than by God’s promise to give spiritual blessing to 
those who ask Him. Here again from the result we 
infer a divine purpose. God ordained prayer and Christ 
gave the promise to answer prayer in order to test, and 
thus develop, man’s faith in God. 

God will answer prayer only so far as it is in harmony 
with the principles of the administration of His King¬ 
dom. For these are for the highest good of man, and 
to deviate from them would be injury to man. By these 
principles, therefore, are limited, and must be interpreted, 
all the promises of God. Consequently, to be effectual, 
prayer must be in harmony with the will of God. The 
great promise to answer prayer, in John xv. 7, is given 
to those who abide in Christ. And the prayers of such 
men will be controlled by the new life derived from 
their inward union with Him. Similarly, 1 John v. 14, 
15 : “ If we ask anything according to His will, He 
hears us : and if we know that He hears us, whatever we 
ask, we know that we have the petitions which we have 
asked from Him.” Consequently, effective prayer is 
conditioned by careful study of the mind and purpose 
of God. 

The simplest form of prayer is for the spiritual 
blessings promised in the Gospel for all who put faith in 
Christ. For in these prayers only two persons are 
involved, ourselves and God, and the will of God is 
1G 



224 


THE MEANS OF GRACE 


[Part III 


revealed. The only conditions of success are that we 
understand the manifested will of God, and expect, with 
humble yet confident faith, its realisation in ourselves. 
And this simplest form of prayer is in some respects the 
most fruitful. For the blessings thus to be obtained are 
the greatest gifts of God to man. To learn that they 
may be obtained by asking for, has been to thousands 
a new era in the spiritual life. 

In the passages quoted above, Paul prays frequently 
for deliverance from bodily peril. His example justifies 
prayer for temporal blessings. But such prayers, from 
men who know not what will most advance their own 
good and the Kingdom of Christ, must ever be offered 
with profound submission to the unknown will of God. 
Of such submission, we have already quoted a supreme 
example in the prayer of Christ recorded in Mark xiv. 36. 
Such prayers can never be unanswered : but frequently 
the answer will assume a form neither desired nor 
thought of by the offerer. 

Prayer for the spiritual good of others is justified by 
the examples quoted above from the Epistles of Paul. 
But the answer to such prayers involves, in addition to 
him who prays and God who hears, a third personality, 
viz. the person on whose behalf prayer is made. The 
answer to such prayers is therefore conditioned by the 
free-will of another man, by the awful prerogative, given 
by God to every man, of refusing and resisting spiritual 
blessing. This divinely-given prerogative, no prayers 
of another can efface. But Paul’s earnest and constant 
prayers for others and Christ’s prayer (Luke xxii. 32) that 



Lect. XXV] 


PRAYER 


22 5 


Peter’s faith might not fail teach us that such prayers 
are acceptable to God. And, if so, they cannot pass 
unanswered. We infer therefore that in answer to such 
prayers God will bring to bear on those for whom we 
pray spiritual influences tending towards salvation, 
although the effect of these influences depends ultimately 
upon the persons in question. 

The relation of prayer to natural law cannot be dis¬ 
cussed here. And its discussion is needless for the 
purpose of this volume. If man can, by adapting his 
own action to the forces of nature, use them to work out 
his purposes, if he can deflect from their course the 
operation of natural forces, as when men catch a ball 
which otherwise would have struck the ground, surely 
He from whom all natural forces spring can so use them 
as to work out through them His will towards men ; and 
His will is, as we have learned, to answer prayer. We 
pray with complete confidence because our prayers are 
offered " to Him who is able to do abundantly beyond 
all we ask or think.” 

Prayer is in some sense a correlative to God’s 
revelation of Himself to man. It is an expression 
of man’s apprehension and approval of, and desire 
for, the revealed will of God. God makes known to 
man His purpose to bless. Man hears and approves 
and asks for, and expects, its accomplishment. Of this 
accomplishment, God has thought fit to make man’s 
approval and expectation a condition. 


Already we have found, in John xvii. 11-24, Luke 




226 


THE MEANS OF GRACE 


[Part III 


xxii. 32, the Incarnate Son praying for those on whose 
behalf He was about to die. In Rom. viii. 34, we 
read that the Risen Christ, at the right hand of God, 
“ intercedes on our behalf.” To this abiding intercession 
is attributed in Heb. vii. 25 Christ’s ability to save : 
“He is able to save completely those who come through 
Him to God, seeing that He ever lives to intercede on 
their behalf.” These passages teach that the prayer of 
Christ for His disciples, begun on earth, is continued 
now on the throne of God ; and that the salvation which 
God works in those who believe is not only a result of 
the death of Christ but an answer to His living prayer. 
This is the supreme example of prayer. 

We have learned in Lect. XVIII. that the New Life, 
in all its elements, is through Christ In our earlier 
volume we learned that it is specifically through His 
death. We have now learned that it is also through His 
abiding intercession. 

The intercession of Christ is closely related to the 
propitiation for sins in His death. This is suggested by 
the mention of the “ priesthood ” and the “ high priest ” 
both before and after the intercession of Christ in Heb. 
vii. 25. The writer’s line of thought recalls the incense, 
a silent and symbolic prayer, with which, on the great 
Day of Atonement, the high-priest went into the most 
holy place, with the blood of slain animals, to make 
propitiation for the sins of the people. But this symbolic 
intercession was not, as some have caricatured it, a 
means of persuading God to pardon. It was ordained 
by God as a means by which guilty man should approach 



Lect XXV] 


PRAYER 


327 


Him. So Christ pleads, not as though He were our 
friend and God our enemy, but as ordained by God to 
plead for those for whom God gave Him to die. As we 
saw in my last volume, His death was needful for our 
salvation. This great truth is set before us, in a form 
derived from the ritual of the Old Covenant, in the high- 
priestly intercession of Christ. Doubtless that ritual 
was ordained by God in order that it might set forth the 
death of Christ for man’s sin. And from that death and 
intercession our own prayers derive their power. 

The intercession of Christ may be viewed in two 
aspects. It teaches that man’s cry for pardon has an 
eternal archetype within the Godhead, and that the 
pardon of those who believe in Christ is the legitimate 
result of His death. On the other hand, our knowledge 
that while we plead on earth there pleads for us in 
heaven One who cannot plead in vain assures us that 
our prayers will be answered. 

In Rom. viii. 26 the Spirit of God “ intercedes on 
behalf of saints.” He prays for them by moving them 
to pray. So in Gal. iv. 6 He is said to cry “ Abba, 
Father,” because, as we read in Rom. viii. 15, He moves 
us so to cry. He prays for us by praying in us. To 
know this, greatly aids our faith, and thus gives effective¬ 
ness to our prayers. In this prayer of the Spirit on our 
behalf we shall, in Lect. XXXIV., find an indication 
tbit the Spirit is a Person distinct from the Father and 
the Son. 

We have now seen that in our prayers each divine 
Person has a definite and characteristic part. They are 



228 


THE MEANS OF GRACE 


[Part III 


offered in the Spirit, through the Son, to the Father. 
The Spirit dwelling in our hearts moves us to pray, and 
thus gives to our prayers His own authority. Only 
through the abiding propitiation in the death of the 
incarnate Son can the prayers of sinful man be accept¬ 
able to God. And the Father who gave His Son to 
die is Himself the Hearer and the Answerer of prayer. 
Thus the harmony of man with God which finds utter¬ 
ance in man’s prayer to God has its divine source and 
counterpart in the intercession, prompted by and accept¬ 
able to the Father, of the Son and Spirit on man’s behalf. 

We wonder not that prayer, springing as it does from 
the eternal relation of the Persons of the Godhead, is in 
a unique sense a means of grace. 

Prayer is, in one important aspect of it, a solitary 
approach of man to God ; just as faith is a personal 
reliance upon Him. But, just as one man’s faith is often 
strengthened ( e.g . Rom. i. 12) by that of others, so the 
experience of the people of God proves the great benefit 
of united prayer. In Acts iv. 24 we find men who 
“ with one accord lifted up their voice to God ” in 
prayer. And in all ages, such united approach to God 
has been an abundant means of blessing. 

Still more conspicuously do the other means of grace 
mentioned above involve co-operation of the servants 
of Christ. The benefits of preaching and teaching 
imply not only a hearer but a speaker. The two 
sacraments are not solitary rites, but imply co-operation. 
We have in the New Testament no instance of a man 



Lect. XXV] 


THE CHURCH 


229 


baptising himself. Even Christ received the sacred 
rite from another. And the Lord’s Supper is essentially 
a joint meal. So Paul says in 1 Cor. x. 17, “we all 
partake the same bread.” This needed co-operation 
reminds us that the New Life in Christ is, like human 
life in general, social. For his highest well-being, man 
needs the help of his fellows. 

For this need, provision is made in the Church of 
Christ, which is a divinely-ordained society within the 
larger society of the human race, designed to embrace 
the race and to give to it a unity and well-being other¬ 
wise impossible. Christ designed His followers to be 
united together, not only by inward loyalty to Himself, 
but in visible fellowship, in order that His Church may 
be the earthly home of the people of God in which, 
by mutual help, their spiritual life may be sheltered and 
nourished and developed, and in order that by their 
co-operation the Gospel may be carried to the ends 
of the earth. It is the duty of the Church to make 
provision for teaching revealed truth to its members, 
for administering to them the rites ordained by Christ, 
and for united prayer and mutual spiritual encourage¬ 
ment ; for the preservation and dissemination of Holy 
Scripture; and for the announcement of the Gospel to 
the world. Thus is the Church itself a many-sided and 
all-embracing means of grace. This important topic will 
be the subject of my next volume. 

By the use of the divinely-appointed channels of 
blessing, the New Life in Christ is maintained, in spite 
of hostile influences around, and attains day by day 



230 


THE MEANS OF GRACE 


[Part III 


a richer development. And each day’s victory over sin 
and all spiritual growth reveal the reality of the divine 
life in man, and the truth of the Gospel which, under the 
shadow of the guilt of past sins and in present bondage 
to sin, we dared to accept on the word and promise of 
God, 



LECTURE XXVI 

RESULTS ATTAINED 

\ \ 7E come now to review the spiritual and practical 
* * results of our theological researches up to this 
point. 

Amid the many and various inanimate and irrational 
objects around us, our attention was arrested by other 
objects rising immeasurably above them, viz. men and 
women, corporeal, living, and rational. We also found, 
Jnwoven into the tissue of human thought, a mysterious 
and peremptory rule of conduct, one which cannot be 
accounted for by any of the forces observed at work in 
the material world. These objects lifeless and living, 
and the intelligence and moral sense of man, we traced 
to an intelligent and moral Creator. And we found 
that, just as all living creatures can live and prosper 
only in an appropriate environment, so man can attain 
his highest welfare only along the path marked out for 
him by the inborn Moral Sense. This last is, to each 
man, until better instructed, in spite of human liability 
to error in moral judgments, the Voice and Law of God. 

Thousands of men and women in all ages and nations 
and ranks are conscious, as the literature of the world 


232 


THE WAY OI HOLINESS 


[Part III 


bears witness, that they have broken this law so mar¬ 
vellously inwoven into their inner life. And not a few 
of them are conscious of inward moral deterioration 
resulting from their transgression. This moral deteriora¬ 
tion, itself a punishment of sin, reveals a power able 
and ready to vindicate the authority of the moral sense 
by due recompense for all actions good and bad. And, 
inasmuch as such exact retribution is not observed on 
earth, but is contradicted by the fact that many have 
lost their lives by doing right, the most thoughtful men 
in all nations and ages have looked for a retribution 
beyond the grave. 

In many cases, this fear of future punishment has 
prompted earnest and sometimes painful efforts to do 
right. But these efforts have been for the more part in 
vain ; and thousands have felt themselves powerless to 
to do that which their moral sense peremptorily com¬ 
mands. This powerlessness is a felt moral bondage. 
And it increases our fear of punishment to come: for it 
reveals how far man has fallen from his Creator’s purpose. 

This widespread experience is confirmed by the 
teaching of the Old Testament, and still more fully 
by that of the New. Christ and His Apostles assert 
or assume constantly that all men have sinned, and 
have thus fallen under the anger of God ; and that none 
can by his own moral strength so act as to obtain the 
favour of God. In other words, both Paul and Christ 
represent all men as guilty of past sins, and there¬ 
fore exposed to punishment, and as held fast in a moral 
bondage they are utterly unable to break. 



Lect. XXVI] 


RESULTS ATTAINED 


233 


This teaching about the lost state of man, we found 
supplemented in Old and New Testaments by other 
teaching about the saving grace of God. We read 
that upon all men God is exerting influences tending 
towards repentance and salvation, influences without 
which repentance and moral liberation are impossible. 
These influences reveal the mercy of God and 11 is 
purpose to save even those who have sinned against 
Him, and are now unable to obey his commands. 

With this teaching of the Bible agree the facts of 
human life as we observe them in the social life around 
us, and read them in the literature of the past. On the 
one hand, even in Christian countries, sin is prevalent 
on every side : on the other hand, even among those 
who have never heard the Gospel, especially in the 
ancient world, we find here and there great moral 
excellence. In our own hearts are evil influences which 
can be overcome only by constant watchfulness and by 
divine help; and even bad men are conscious sometimes 
of influences recalling them towards the path of virtue. 
The utter helplessness of man to save himself is ex¬ 
plained by the teaching of the New Testament about 
man’s bondage to sin. The occasional excellence of 
men who reject the Gospel or have never heard it is 
explained by the teaching of Paul that the kindness 
of God is leading men to repentance. Such is the 
state of man apart from the salvation announced in 
the Gospel of Christ 

Under these circumstances, as we read in Gen. xii. 1-3, 
xv. 18, God became the friend of Abraham, entered into 



234 


THE WAY OF HOLINESS 


[Part III 


special covenant with him and his descendants, and 
gave to him promises of blessing for all mankind. In 
later days, through the agency of Moses, He rescued 
Israel from Egypt, gave to them a written law consist¬ 
ing of various elements, moral, social, and ritual, and 
made His favour conditional upon obedience to the law 
thus given. This historic law received authority both 
from the law written upon the hearts of all men and 
from the manifestly divine deliverance from Egypt 
which preceded it; and, as a voice from without, it both 
aroused and strengthened the voice speaking within. 

The law thus given, whether written on the heart of 
man or on tables of stone, could not save. Its only 
immediate effect was to deepen man’s conviction of past 
sin and to increase his fear of coming punishment; and, 
by stimulating efforts for amendment, to reveal still more 
clearly the fetters of his moral bondage. 

It is right to say that the written law was both 
preceded and accompanied by promises of blessing from 
God to man. These promises could not neutralise the 
condemnation of the Law. But they manifested the 
goodness of God, and His purpose of blessing even for 
sinful man; and thus aroused a hope that He who gave 
the command will also give power to obey it 

In the fulness of the times, when on the broad plat¬ 
form of history all human effort seemed to have been 
tried and to have failed, there appeared in the nation to 
whom the promises had been given a great religious 
teacher. He announced as good news that God receives 
into His favour, in spite of their past sins, all who 



Lect. XXVI] 


RESULTS ATTAINED 


*35 


believe His message of pardon. In support of this 
announcement Christ claimed to be in a unique sense the 
Son of God, and asserted that in the great Day He will 
Himself sit upon the throne and pronounce judgment 
on all men. The voice which made these unheard-of 
claims was silenced in the agonies of the cross, and the 
lips which had spoken these words of life soon lay still 
in the grave. But He rose from the dead ; and bade 
His disciples announce everywhere His Gospel of salva¬ 
tion. They did so; and appealed to their Master’s 
resurrection from the dead as proof that His Gospel 
is true. This Gospel, thousands have believed ; and by 
believing it have entered the number of the justified. 

The pardon of sinners announced by Christ and His 
Apostles seems at first sight to overturn the principles 
of justice. For the Gospel proclaims life for men who 
deserve to die. But both Christ and His Apostles teach 
that the salvation announced in the Gospel comes to us 
through the death of Christ on the cross, that for this 
end He died, that the need for His death lay in man’s 
sin, viewed (as Paul teaches) in the light of the justice of 
God. Now the gift of the Son of God to die for guilty 
man reveals, as nothing else could do, the infinite love 
of God to man. This manifested love of God broadens 
the foundation for man’s faith already laid securely in 
the resurrection of Christ. We cannot doubt the word 
of Him who, to save us, gave up His Only-begotten Son. 
From all this we learned that the faith which justifies is 
a reliance upon the character of God as revealed and 
attested in the death and resurrection of Christ 



236 


THE WAY OF HOLINESS 


[Part III 


Even this manifestation of the love and power of God 
in the facts of the earthly life of Christ does not com • 
plete the salvation of man. For the law written by the 
Creator in the heart of man and given by Him in 
literary form to ancient Israel requires obedience as a 
condition of the favour of God. So deeply written is 
this law, as a condition of the favour of God, that it 
cannot be blotted out even by the blood shed on the 
cross of Christ. Indeed, the majesty of the Moral Sense 
of man forbids him to be at rest while doing that which 
the Law forbids. Yet, as we have seen, man is power¬ 
less to do that which the Law commands. 

The writers of the New Testament teach that all who 
believe the Gospel are received, not only into the favour 
of God, but into the number of His children. Paul 
teaches conspicuously that they are adopted as sons of 
God and made sharers of the heritage of the Firstborn 
Son. He teaches also that to His adopted sons God 
gives the Spirit of His Son to be in them the animating 
principle of a new life, moving them to call God their 
Father, imparting power to break the fetters of sin, 
and guiding and enabling them to walk along the path 
marked out for them by the Law. Other New Testa¬ 
ment writers and Christ Himself teach that, by the 
agency of the Spirit of God, they who believe are born 
again and thus receive a new and divine life. 

This new life of filial confidence in God and power 
over sin, being manifestly superhuman and following 
faith in Christ, itself confirms the Gospel of pardon 
which in our deep sin we dared to believe. The 



Lect. XXVI] 


RESULTS ATTAINED 


237 


supreme authority of the Moral Sense, which once 
condemned us, now bears witness to the divine origin of 
a salvation which enables us, in a degree unknown 
before, to do that which we know to be right. That 
voice, when it condemned us, we dared not contradict: 
we dare not contradict it now when it bears witness to 
the reality of the work of God in us. Thus, even in 
the present life, our faith in Christ and in the Gospel 
receives complete verification. 

Such is the entrance into the way of life. We have 
also in some measure traced its course. 

We saw that under the Old Covenant God claimed 
that certain objects, lifeless and living, irrational and 
rational, be devoted wholly to Himself and His service ; 
and that Jesus of Nazareth claims from all His followers 
unreserved devotion to Himself and to the Kingdom He 
came to establish. Christ thus gave a new and loftier 
ideal of life ; an ideal which becomes to us, in proportion 
as we apprehend it, the highest law of our being, and 
transforms and ennobles our conception of ourselves, 
of our fellow men, and of our entire environment. 

This ideal of human life, we found realised to the 
full in Jesus of Nazareth. He thus became our perfect 
pattern. This pattern, we endeavoured to imitate : but 
our efforts only revealed our inability to do so. We 
cried for help to Him who, in Christ, had already recon¬ 
ciled us to Himself. 

The New Testament teaches that to those who believe 
the Gospel God gives His Holy Spirit to prompt, and 
to work out in them by His wisdom and power, a new 



2 3 8 


THE WAY OF HOLINESS 


[Part III 


life of unreserved devotion to God like the devotion of 
Christ to God ; and that this work of the Spirit in man 
is accomplished through faith and in proportion to our 
faith. Consequently, like the pardon of our sins, the 
new life of obedience and devotion is a gift and work of 
God ; and, like pardon, it is obtained by faith. 

We saw that devotion to God involves victory over 
sin: for all sin is hostile to God and to the work of 
Christ. And, since salvation was made possible for 
guilty man only by the death of Christ, victory over and 
purification from sin are results of the blood shed on 
His cross. As involved in loyalty to Christ, this purifi¬ 
cation is through faith and through the Holy Spirit. 
Thus sin, once our conqueror and oppressor, still our 
antagonist, is put beneath our feet. The Law of God, 
whether speaking to us in the Moral Sense or from the 
pages of Holy Scripture, is also changed. For it is no 
longer a voice from above condemning us but a light 
within guiding us along a safe path. Nay, more. The 
entire universe around us is changed. For, to those 
who love God, all things are working together for good. 

The New Life, thus begun, is a constant growth, in 
intelligence, in moral strength, and in likeness to Christ. 
We are not surprised to find that this growth, and 
indeed continuance in the New Life, are conditioned 
by continued faith. Frequently in the New Testament 
we are warned that, unless by faith we abide in Christ, 
we shall fall; and, unless we return to faith, fall finally. 

We also found various divinely-ordained helps to faith 
and obedience and spiritual growth. The preached and 



Lect. XXVI] 


RESULTS ATTAINED 


239 


written word is the spiritual nourishment of the New 
Life. So are the two sacred rites ordained by Christ. 
That the word may be effectively preached and the 
sacraments duly and appropriately administered, and 
that the Gospel may be carried to the ends of the earth, 
Christ has ordained that His servants be united together 
in the fellowship of His Church. And, just as in the 
Gospel God speaks to men and thus conveys to them 
spiritual life, so God has ordained that in prayer men 
shall speak to God and ask for and obtain all spiritual 
good. 

We also learned that Christ, by putting men right with 
God, puts each one right with his fellows. Sin, by 
giving men up to their own selfishness, broke up the 
race into discordant fragments. For selfishness makes 
each one an end to himself, and thus brings him into 
collision with others. Christ came into the world to 
save men from sin and all its consequences, and to unite 
them into a living whole in which each various part 
contributes to the healthy development of the whole. 
Consequently, devotion to Christ is devotion to the 
highest good of man. Thus the religion taught by Christ, 
so far as it is embraced by men, gives back to our race 
the unity lost by sin, and unites the various resources 
distributed among men for the enrichment of the whole. 
In this lofty sense is Christ the Saviour of the World. 

Such is the scheme of salvation presented in the New 
Testament. To men guilty of actual sin and exposed 
to punishment, Christ announced pardon, and gave proof 
of His authority so to do. To men held fast by inward 
17 



240 


RESULTS ATTAINED 


[Part III 


bondage to sin, He gives, by the Holy Spirit dwelling 
in the hearts of all that believe, inward liberation. In 
the death of Christ, honour is paid to the law which 
condemned us. And by the Holy Spirit we are led 
along the path which the Law prescribes. The new life 
thus given develops day by day. This new and holy 
life and this daily growth attest the truth of the Gospel 
we have believed. And this is further attested by the 
manifest influence of Christianity in elevating national 
life and in binding together all Christian nations. 



PART IV 

THE DIVINE AND HUMAN IN THE CHRISTIAN 
LIFE 


LECTURE XXVII 

THE ETERNAL PURPOSE 

I N the foregoing exposition I have endeavoured to 
prove that, in the teaching of Paul and of Christ 
salvation, from the first turning of the sinner towards 
God up to the last victory over the last temptation, 
is altogether a work of God. As such, it is called by 
Paul “ a New Creation.” This later manifestation of 
the creative activity of God differs, however, from the 
creation of the universe and of man in that in it we trace 
another determining factor, in addition to the will and 
work of God, viz. the mysterious personality and the 
personal action of man. The relation between these 
two factors in human life and in the development of the 
Kingdom of God on earth, we come now to consider. 
This we shall best do by tracing up the work of salva¬ 
tion to its ultimate source in the eternal purpose of God. 


241 



242 


THE ETERNAL PURPOSE 


[Part IV 


And this inquiry will bring before us another important 
element of the teaching of the New Testament 

Since all the best works of man (cp. Through Christ to 
God , p. io) are products of intelligence and forethought, 
and are realisations of deliberate purpose, and since we 
must think of God as Himself Supreme Intelligence, the 
Source of all other intelligence, we cannot doubt that 
also the salvation of men and the development of the 
Kingdom of God are in all stages an accomplishment 
of a divine purpose. In other words, the Kingdom 
of God among men must have existed as a definite 
thought in the mind of God before it existed in objective 
actuality. 

This purpose must have been eternal. For, although 
we can conceive new outward activity of God, we cannot 
conceive a new thought in God, i.e. the entrance into 
His mind of a conception not previously there. In Him 
there can be no afterthought. For, whereas action is 
passing, thought is abiding. And that which abides in 
the eternal mind must have been there from eternity. 

From all this we infer that, before the foundation of 
the world and before the earliest creation of matter, both 
the material universe and the Kingdom of God in all 
their stages existed as definite thought in the mind 
of God. In other words, whatever throughout the ages 
God has done in the salvation of men and in building up 
the Kingdom of God is an accomplishment of an eternal 
purpose. 

So closely related are man and the whole life of man 



Lect. XXVII] THE ETERNAL PURPOSE 


243 


to his material environment, and so closely related to 
this environment is man’s rescue from sin and ruin, that 
we cannot doubt that creation and redemption are 
mutually related parts of one great purpose. Indeed 
the earlier stages of the development of the material 
world are of interest chiefly as preparing a platform for 
human life and history and for the work of God among 
men. And, in view of man’s sin, his creation would be 
no lasting benefit apart from the redemption wrought by 
Christ. When God created the world, He must have 
foreseen that it would be stained by sin and by the 
shed blood of the Eternal Son. And, when He linked 
together the various forces of nature, He evidently 
ordained them so as most to help forward the great 
purpose for which in future ages the Eternal Son 
assumed human form. The adaptation of each to the 
other reveals the Author’s comprehensive plan. Viewed 
in this light, the successive stages of the material world, 
the creation of matter and the impulse which created 
motion, the creation of life and of intelligence, are 
consecutive steps leading up to the eternal and glorious 
Kingdom of Christ and of God. 

God’s purpose to save man could not have been 
prompted by any good outside God. For the harmony 
and unity of whatever is good reveals a common source: 
and this can be no other than the One Source of the 
material universe and of the moral sense of man. Con¬ 
sequently, all human goodness is an outflow of eternal 
goodness, and a work of God in man. And, as itself a 
result of divine activity, it cannot be a motive for the 



244 


THE ETERNAL PURPOSE 


[Part IV 


same. Consequently, salvation cannot be in any way 
by human merit, i.e. the purpose to save man was not 
prompted by his foreseen repentance and faith and 
obedience. For all these are works of God in man. 
Both creation and redemption sprang only from God’s 
purpose to bless. Being Himself infinite love, He 
resolved to create intelligent objects of love, and to 
enrich them with His own fulness: and, since He fore¬ 
saw man’s sin, which can be forgiven only through some 
such manifestation of God’s righteousness, as was actually 
given in the death of Christ for man’s sin, He purposed 
before the creation of the world to give His Son to die 
for the salvation of men. 

That salvation is, from beginning to completion, an 
accomplishment of an eternal purpose of God, by nc 
means excludes its contingency on man’s action. For 
man’s action is an outworking of a power given to him 
by God. And we cannot doubt that the intelligent 
Author of this power foresaw the entire future operation 
of that which Himself created. He must have known 
what man would do. And this foreknowledge must 
have conditioned the details of His own purposes with 
regard to man. This topic, I shall further discuss in 
Lect. XXIX. 

We therefore infer with confidence from the nature 
of God, as revealed in the material world and in human 
life and history, that whatever God has done and will 
do, in creation, redemption, and the establishment of 
the Kingdom of God, is an accomplishment of an 
eternal purpose, and that the various elements of this 



Lect. XXVII] THE ETERNAL PURPOSE 


*45 


purpose stand related, each to the others, as constituent 
parts of one harmonious counsel of God. I shall now 
endeavour to show that this inference was anticipated 
by the clear and abundant teaching of the New Testa¬ 
ment and especially of the Epistles of Paul. 

In his inaugural address recorded in Acts ii. 14-36, 
Peter speaks (v. 23) of Christ as “ given up by the 
marked out (mpur/ievy) counsel and foreknowledge ol 
God.” This implies that the death of Christ, to which 
in the words following Peter expressly refers, was 
part of a definite purpose of God. Moreover, that this 
purpose was based upon what God foresaw that the 
enemies of Christ would do to Him, is suggested by 
the word foreknoivledge. For otherwise the addition ol 
this word is meaningless. It brings before us another 
element in the death of Christ besides the divine 
purpose, viz. the foreseen action of man. 

After stating in Rom. viii. 19-23 that Nature will 
share the salvation awaiting the children of God, Paul 
goes on to state in v. 28 that all things are working 
together for good for those who love God. This 
universal harmony, he then traces to the divine purpose 
underlying the Gospel call: “ for them who, according 
to His purpose, are called.” This purpose is stated in 
v. 29: “ whom He foreknew, He also foreordained to be 
conformed to the image of His Son, in order that He 
may be firstborn among many brethren.” The emphatic 
repetition of the particle 7 rpo- in the composite verbs “ fore - 
knew ” and “/preordained ” suggests strongly that this 
divine purpose was earlier than the “ all things ” which 



THE ETERNAL PURPOSE 


[Part IV 


246 

are working together for the good of those who love 
God. Paul asserts that in the eternal past the eternal 
Father, contemplating the eternal Son, resolved to sur¬ 
round Him with other later-born sons, made like to the 
Firstborn, whom He would not be ashamed to call His 
brethren. Of this eternal purpose, whatever God has 
done in Christ is a realisation. 

In Rom. xvi. 25 we read of a “ mystery kept in 
silence during eternal ages, but manifested now ” in the 
Gospel of Paul and the proclamation of Jesus Christ, and 
“ made known according to a command of the eternal 
God for all the nations/' This mystery can be no other 
than the purpose of salvation which from eternity lay 
hidden in the breast of God and which in the Gospel of 
Christ is revealed to men. 

Similarly, in 1 Cor. ii. 7 we read of “ God’s wisdom in 
a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God foreordained 
(same word as in Rom. viii. 29) before the ages for our 
glory.” We are here taught that, before the successive 
ages of time began, God marked out in His wisdom a 
definite purpose of salvation, a purpose known only by 
those to whom God reveals it through His Spirit. 

Still more clearly in Eph. i. 4 we read that God 
“ chose us in Him before the foundation of the world 
in order that we may be holy and blameless before Him, 
having foreordained (same word as in Rom. viii. 29, 
I Cor. ii. 7) us to adoption through Jesus Christ.” In 
v. 9 we read of “ the mystery of His will, according to 
His good pleasure which He purposed in Him.” That 
purpose is " to sum up all things in Christ, those in the 



Lect. XXVII] THE ETERNAL PURPOSE 


247 


heavens and those on the earth.” The readers had been 
“ foreordained according to the purpose of Him who 
works all things according to the counsel of His own 
will.” We have here in the mind of God, before the 
foundation of the world, a definite purpose to bring 
sinful men, their sins forgiven through the death of 
Christ, into the family of God, and to unite the whole 
universe under the sway of Christ. 

Notice here two elements in God’s purpose of salva¬ 
tion, viz. a selection of the objects of salvation, and 
a marking out beforehand, or predestination, of the goal 
to which He was resolved to lead them. In the eternal 
past God resolved to save, not all men indiscriminately, 
nor on the ground of previous merit, but those and 
only those who should believe the promise of life in 
Christ Jesus. This selection, made by the sovereign 
wisdom of God, seemed to the Jews both arbitrary 
and subversive of morality. But Paul shows, in Rom. 
ix. 6-13, that it was no more so than was God’s choice 
of Isaac and rejection of Ishmael, and of Jacob but not 
Esau before the twin brothers had done good or evil. 
Paul’s doctrine of election is only his fundamental 
doctrine of Justification through Faith viewed in the 
light of the eternal purpose of God. Similarly, his 
doctrine of predestination to be sons of God, conformed 
to the image of the eternal Son, is but his doctrine of 
Adoption looked at from the same point of view. 

The eternal purpose meets us again in Eph. iii. 4-6: 
“ the mystery of Christ, which in other generations 
was not made known to the sons of men, as now it 



245 


THE ETERNAL PURPOSE 


[Part IV 


has been revealed to His holy apostles and prophets 
in the Spirit.” Similarly, in the latest of his epistles, 
2 Tim. i. 9, io: “who saved us, and called us with a 
holy calling, not according! to our works but according 
to a purpose of His own and grace given to us in Christ 
Jesus before eternal ages, but manifested now through 
the appearance of our Saviour Jesus Christ.” 

In Rev. xvii. 8 we read of persons “whose name is 
not written in the Book of Life from the foundation of 
the world.” This implies, in close harmony with the 
teaching of Paul quoted above, that, before the world 
was, the future heirs of salvation were present to the 
thought and purpose of God. The similar words in 
ch. xiii. 8 may mean either that the book was written 
or the Lamb was slain, from the foundation of the 
world. The practical difference is not great. For each 
interpretation implies that the purpose of salvation, 
which several times in this book is connected with the 
death of Christ, is earlier than the creation. 

In the above quotations we trace, to the writers of 
the New Testament, our own inferences from the Gospel 
viewed in the light of the nature of God. Indeed, 
Paul’s doctrines of election and predestination are little 
more than a restatement of the Gospel in terms of the 
eternal forethought of God. 

This creative and redemptive thought, we may con¬ 
ceive as an object of divine contemplation in eternity. 
We may also conceive God contemplating, with com¬ 
plete satisfaction, its future realisation in the eternal 
glory of the sons of God; and contemplating the 



Lf.ct. XXVII] 


THE ETERNAL PURPOSE 


249 


successive stages leading up to this supreme result. 
We may reverently conceive the eternal Father and 
the eternal Son contemplating the cost of this realisa¬ 
tion, viz. the self-emptying and incarnation and suffering 
and death of the eternal Son ; and, in view of the glory 
which would follow, deliberately purposing this stupen¬ 
dous sacrifice. This purpose is an eternal outflow, as 
each step of its realisation is an historic outflow, of that 
love which is the inmost essence of God 



LECTURE XXVIII 


THE PROGRESSIVE REALISATION 
E have seen the purpose to create the universe, 



to redeem man, and to build up the eternal 


Kingdom of God, as pure thought, but definite and 
complete thought, in the mind of God; an outflow 
of infinite love armed with infinite resources. We come 
now to consider its progressive realisation. 

The first step in this realisation, so far as we can 
conceive, must have been the creation of matter. And 
matter in its earliest form, we cannot conceive as other 
than homogeneous. For heterogeneity must have had a 
previous history. This original matter must have been 
endowed with inherent forces, or a force, of which the 
present natural forces are specialised developments. 
And, at its creation or subsequently, it must have 
received the primal impulse which created motion and 
broke up its homogeneity. In matter thus created, we 
have an objective reality other than God, Himself the 
original and eternal Reality. And in its movements we 
have activity derived from God but distinct and different 
from the ever-active thought of God. 

Under the influence of the primal impulse, and of the 


LECT. xxvnrj THE PROGRESSIVE REALISATION 


25i 


reaction of the inherent forces of nature, we must 
conceive the evolution of the solar system, and especially 
of our planet, as a suitable dwelling-place for man and a 
suitable platform for human history. 

A very definite stage in the evolution of the universe 
was marked by the origin of life. In living bodies we 
notice new forces at work, differing widely from, yet 
most closely related to, the forces operating in inorganic 
matter. The advent of life created a new era in the 
history of our planet, a further stage in the progressive 
realisation of the purpose of God. We notice also the 
many-sided development of innumerable varieties of 
life; and, amid them, a well-sustained progress from 
lower to higher forms. The progressive specialisation 
of bodily forms was followed, or accompanied, by the 
dawn and development of animal sensation and intelli¬ 
gence. Looking back upon this intelligence from the 
higher standpoint of human intelligence, we see in it 
another step forward in the accomplishment of the 
creative purpose of God. The significance of this stage 
is indicated by the use of the word life to describe both 
the lower animals and the spiritual and blessed condition 
of saved mankind. For this various use of the same 
w'ord reveals a connection between the very different 
objects denoted by it. 

With life, appeared also an element of apparent 
discord in the harmony of the universe, viz. suffering 
and death, the dark counterfoil to all forms of life. We 
notice however that, in the order of nature, even death 
helps forward the progressive purpose of God. The 



252 


THE PROGRESSIVE REALISATION [Part IV 


destruction of the less fit opened a way for the ap¬ 
pearance successively of higher and still higher forms 
of life. 

Another stage of development was the appearance of 
man, combining in himself and surpassing infinitely all 
earlier progress. In him we notice a capacity for 
development, and especially for development of the 
individual, which leaves far behind all development of 
animal life. Man’s intelligence differs in kind, especially 
in its capacity for development, from that of animals. 
And in his moral sense we have an element altogether 
new. 

This new development, however, brings to view an 
element of discord far more serious even than suffering 
and death. We find men doing, and ourselves doing, 
that which they and we cannot but condemn. The dark 
shadow of sin, as something opposed utterly to the 
intelligent Source of all things, falls across the scene 
now opening to our view. In sin we see a footprint of 
an actor other than, and opposed to, God. And the 
presence of sin hinders, evidently and seriously, the 
harmonious realisation of the purpose of God. 

But we have seen that God did not leave man in his 
sin. We found Him using means to lead him back to 
obedience and life. Moreover we notice that God uses 
sin, and especially sin in its most tremendous form, viz. 
the murder of Christ, to work out His purposes of 
mercy. Thus under the shadow of death, and amid the 
discord introduced by sin, with progress rapid or slow, 
and in spite of occasional retrogression, during the ages, 



Lect. XXVIII] THE PROGRESSIVE REALISATION 


253 


the great purpose of God has advanced towards fuller 
and fuller realisation. 

By His covenant with Abraham, God linked Himself 
with man more closely than ever before. And through 
the deliverance from Egypt, and the ordinances given at 
Sinai, God placed the whole Israelite nation in special 
relation to Himself, and gave to it a knowledge of 
Himself not possessed by other nations. By its captivity 
among the heathen, the sacred nation was weaned from 
idolatry ; and by the return from captivity a people was 
prepared to receive from the incarnate Son a Gospel 
designed for all nations. In the fulness of time appeared 
the hoped-for Saviour. Yet, to our surprise, He passed 
from view without having attained any conspicuous and 
world-wide results. But His followers at once began to 
carry to the ends of the world that knowledge of God 
which had hitherto been a privilege of Israel only, and 
with it an announcement of salvation for all men, a 
salvation in its fulness previously unknown even to 
Israel. And now for long centuries, in the Christian 
nations, but in them only, the knowledge and Kingdom 
of God have been making progress among men. Outside 
these nations there has been and is everywhere stag¬ 
nation and decay. Throughout the Christian centuries 
an unseen but guiding hand of God is felt, and perhaps 
most conspicuously in the midst of man’s unfaithfulness 
and sin. As eras revealing this special guidance, we 
notice the age of the Councils, the conversion of the 
Germanic peoples, and the Reformation. Step by step, 
often hindered by man’s folly and sin, the Kingdom of 



254 


THE PROGRESSIVE REALISATION [Part IV 


God has made progress : and Christianity now promises 
speedily to overspread the earth. 

Another kind of progress is observed by thousands 
of the servants of Christ in their own inward and 
outward life. A review of their own history reveals to 
them the guidance of an unseen Hand and help from an 
unseen Source. This they recognise in early influences 
holding them back from sin and leading them towards 
Christ, in special help at special crises of their life, in 
deliverance where there seemed to be no way of escape, 
in increasing joy in God, and in sustained moral growth. 
Their own spiritual experiences reveal to them un¬ 
mistakably the working out of a deliberate purpose of 
One who works all things according to the counsel of 
His own will. 

This development, In the individual and in the race, 
is still going forward. On all sides, and in almost all 
Churches, we see progress. And the progress visible 
around kindles a hope of still more glorious advance in 
the future. For, manifestly, the development of the 
Kingdom of God among men on earth is not yet 
complete. 

This further development, we shall consider in another 
Lecture. The relation of the purpose and work of God 
to the free agency of man demands our next attention. 



LECTURE XXIX 

HUMAN FREEDOM 

E have already noticed, in the facts of life, 



certain phenomena which cannot, or cannot 


without difficulty, be attributed directly to God. The 
first of these was suffering, leading down to death, 
which we found in close relation to all life, animal and 
human ; the second was sin, which is utterly opposed to 
the nature of God, and therefore cannot be His work. 
These phenomena demand now our serious attention. 

Between these two groups of phenomena, viz. suffer¬ 
ing and sin, which are classed together as evil and are 
evidently most closely related, we notice at once an 
immense difference. This difference is indicated by the 
different emotions aroused in us by a great calamity 
and a great crime. The one we deplore, the other we 
condemn. And, while doing so, we feel that these 
judgments belong to different spheres of thought They 
differ in their degree of incongruity to the nature of 
God. Suffering cannot be in itself an end desired by 
Him whose one aim is to bless. But sin is utterly 
abhorrent to God, and cannot be in any way His work. 
Yet we have no difficulty in believing that God has 
18 •<* 


HUMAN FREEDOM 


[Part IV 


256 

linked together sin and suffering in that close relation 
to which the moral life of men bears witness. Of these 
strange phenomena, we now seek some explanation. 

In our search, we turn to the facts of man’s own 
consciousness. We cannot throw off a conviction that 
we are ourselves the ultimate source of our own actions ; 
and that, although these may be due in some measure 
to various external influences, the real responsibility 
rests with ourselves alone. Frequently, this sense of 
sole responsibility is most painful. If we could per¬ 
suade ourselves that some action of ours which we are 
compelled to condemn was really due to an irresistible 
influence, outward or inward, we should be greatly 
relieved. But this relief is denied to us. We dare 
not say that our own actions have their real source 
elsewhere than in ourselves. They claim us as their 
real author. And we stand face to face with a responsi¬ 
bility we cannot lay aside. 

This deeply-rooted and far-reaching conviction, which 
underlies and colours all human thought about our¬ 
selves and others, cannot be a delusion. Otherwise all 
human thought is a delusion, and worthless. If our 
moral estimate of ourselves and others be without 
foundation, we must, in despair, abandon all efforts to 
learn the significance of human life; and sink to the 
level of brutes. 

Again, a wide experience teaches that this sense of 
responsibility for our actions is a powerful deterrent 
from sin and a stimulus to virtue. Consequently, to 
teach that it is a delusion, is to break down a moral 



Lkct. XXIX] 


HUMAN FREEDOM 


*57 


safeguard and to rob man of a moral helper. To do 
this, is to inflict serious injury. If the truth demands 
this sacrifice, then is the truth an enemy to the highest 
interests of man. This cannot be. An irresistible 
conviction, rooted in that in man which is noblest and 
best, assures us that that which is morally hurtful 
cannot be intellectually true. If so, our conviction that 
we are ourselves fully responsible for our own actions 
is and must be essential truth. In other wqrds, man’s 
deep conviction that in the moment of decision he is 
free to yield to or resist the influences brought to bear 
upon him, and that the ultimate decision is with himself 
alone, is attested not only by the strength of this 
conviction but by the moral ruin involved in a denial 
of its truth. Certainly we shall not accept such denial 
unless it be supported by authority equal to the com¬ 
bined evidence just quoted. 

The doctrine, just expounded and supported, that 
each man is the ultimate source of his own actions, is 
contradicted by not a few modern writers. Of these 
I may quote J. S. Mill, who in bk. vi. ch. 2 of his System 
of Logic writes as follows :—“ The question, whether the 
law of causality applies in the same strict sense to 
human actions as to other phenomena, is the celebrated 
controversy about the freedom of the will: which from 
at least as far back as the time of Pelagius, has divided 
both the philosophical and the religious world. The 
affirmative opinion is commonly called the doctrine of 
Necessity, as asserting human volitions and actions to 
be necessary and inevitable. The negative maintains 



* 5 8 


HUMAN FREEDOM 


[Part IV 


that the will is not determined, like other phenomena 
by antecedents, but determines itself; that our volitions 
are not, properly speaking, the effects of causes, or at 
least have no causes which they uniformly and implicitly 
obey. 

“ I have already made it sufficiently apparent that 
the former of these opinions is that which I consider the 
true one; but the misleading terms in which it is often 
expressed, and the indistinct manner in which it is 
usually apprehended, have both obstructed its reception, 
and perverted its influence when received. The meta¬ 
physical theory of free-will, as held by philosophers, 
(for the practical feeling of it, common in a greater or 
less degree to all mankind, is in no way inconsistent 
with the contrary theory,) was invented because the 
supposed alternative of admitting human actions to be 
necessary , was deemed inconsistent with every one’s 
instinctive consciousness, as well as humiliating to the 
pride and even degrading to the moral nature of man. 
Nor do I deny that the doctrine as sometimes held, is 
open to these imputations ; for the misapprehension 
in which I shall be able to show that they originate, 
unfortunately is not confined to the opponents of the 
doctrine, but is participated in by many, perhaps we 
might say by most, of its supporters. 

" Correctly conceived, the doctrine called Philosophical 
Necessity is simply this : that, given the motives which 
are present to an individual’s mind, and given likewise 
the character and disposition of the individual, the 
manner in which he will act might be unerringly in- 



Lect. XXIX] 


HUMAN FREEDOM 


*59 


ferred : that if we knew the person thoroughly, and 
knew all the inducements which are acting upon him, 
we could foretell his conduct with as much certainty as 
we can predict any physical event.” 

Similar teaching underlies the Synthetic Philosophy 
of Herbert Spencer, and is defended in a chapter on 
The Will in his Principles of Psychology . It is uni¬ 
versally accepted by modern Scientific Agnostics as a 
logical result of their principles. 

Already we have seen that this theory is contradicted 
by a conviction too deep and widespread to be a de¬ 
lusion ; and by the moral ruin it involves. A theory 
open to contradictions so serious certainly cannot be 
entertained unless it be supported by decisive proof. 
The only proof adduced is one suggested in the above 
extract, viz. that all other phenomena are governed by 
invariable sequence, and that if human action be not so 
governed it is a solitary exception to an otherwise 
universal law. We are also reminded that the progress 
of human research has greatly extended the realm of 
invariable sequence ; and some have asserted, assuming 
the rdle of a prophet, {eg. Huxley, Lay Sermons , p. 142,) 
that future research will “ gradually extend the realm of 
matter and law until it is coextensive with knowledge, 
with feeling, and with action.” 

But indisputably human action does occupy, as the 
universal estimate of it loudly asserts, a position apart 
from, and superior to, all other phenomena. We have 
therefore no right to assume that what is true of the 
lower is true also of the higher. Certainly, this assump- 



26 o 


HUMAN FREEDOM 


[Part IV 


tion is of no weight against man’s deep conviction that 
in action he is free; and against his experience of the 
moral injury involved in a denial of his freedom. More¬ 
over, the progress of modern research is not more 
wonderful than are the limits of that progress. The 
great questions, viz. the origin of matter, of motion, of 
life, of the moral sense, are as far from solution to-day as 
in the days of the Greek philosophers ; except so far as 
the Gospel of Christ has shed light upon them. Indeed 
modern research has rather revealed the insolubility of 
these problems. To assert the universality of inevitable 
sequence, is to claim to have explored the universe and 
to have solved its deepest mysteries. This claim we 
cannot admit: and with it falls the last attempt to prove 
that human life is a delusion and man the helpless 
victim of irresistible forces. 

We therefore infer that in the moment of decision 
man is free to choose to which of two or more con¬ 
tending motives he will yield ; that he is not a mere 
spectator of contending influences over which he has no 
control, nor only an umpire who gives the palm to the 
stronger force, but that in action he is the actor and 
that the decision rests with himself alone. 

This inference does something to explain the 
phenomena of evil. For it traces sin, which is itself 
essential discord, and all its discordant results, to a 
rational source other than the Author of the universe. 
This by no means implies that sin is an effect without 
a cause, but implies only that its cause lies hidden in 
human personality, i*e. in a personality other than, and 



Lect. XXIX] 


HUMAN FREEDOM 


261 


distinct from, the personal Source of the universe. It 
implies only that He who, in accomplishment of a 
definite purpose of His own, created the world created 
in it persons who are, like Himself, each one the 
intelligent source of a course of activity. 

We cannot doubt that, while creating other sources 
of activity, the intelligent Author of the universe fore¬ 
saw the activity which in all ages would flow from the 
sources thus created. It has often been asked why, 
in full view of all the sin which He foresaw men would 
commit, He gave to them this terrible power of originat¬ 
ing action. But it must be remembered that the only 
alternative to such free action is universal mechanical 
necessity. Such necessity would destroy all real value of 
human life. The world as it is, stained with sin and 
full of sorrow, yet rising year by year and century by 
century with the spread of the Gospel, is infinitely 
nobler and better than a universe consisting only of 
invariable sequences. This alternative, the only one 
possible, is sufficient to silence, if it cannot altogether 
remove, the objection just mentioned. Certainly, this 
question, perplexing as it is, is not sufficient to overturn 
the evidence quoted above from the inner life of man 
that he is the ultimate author of his own actions. 

The teaching of Mill and Spencer and Huxley, which 
I have endeavoured to overturn, is destructive both 
of religion and of morality. By destroying man’s real 
personality and reducing him to a mere machine, it 
practically reduces God to the same. It makes the 
action both of God and of man an inevitable out- 



262 


HUMAN FREEDOM 


[Part IV 


working of some mysterious and invariable ultimate 
force, the mechanical source of the universe. It 
destroys the unique evil of sin, making it to be only 
a misfortune. And it leaves man without any motive 
for contending against sin as such, and without power 
to contend. Fortunately a doctrine so destructive of all 
that is noblest and best is, as we have seen, destitute 
of foundation, and is overturned by the facts of human 
consciousness. 

The results attained in this lecture will help to 
explain the facts of Christianity and of the Christian 
life. 



LECTURE XXX 

THE DIVINE-HUMAN CHRISTIAN LIFE 


7 E have now found phenomena in human life 
* * and action which cannot be traced directly 
to the intelligent Author of life ; and which therefore 
reveal a source in some measure independent of Him. 
This partially independent source of action, we found 
in the power of self-determination of which each man 
is directly conscious. In other words, just as the 
universe with its various forces and its manifold life 
cannot be traced further back than the will of God, 
so we found phenomena which cannot be traced 
further back than the personal self-will of man. 

This mysterious power of self-determination must 
be a gift of God to man. And, if so, it must, as we 
have already seen, have been a part of the original 
purpose of creation. In other words, when God re¬ 
solved to create man, He resolved to give him power 
to originate action for which man only should be 
responsible. And this purpose to create a responsible 
being must have been in full view of the entire future 
activity of man. We cannot doubt that God foresaw all 
the consequences of committing to man this mysterious 

.63 


264 


THE DIVINE-HUMAN 


[Part IV 


and tremendous prerogative of choice: and, foresee¬ 
ing all, He yet resolved to give this power to man. 
This inference from the indisputable facts of human 
life, looked at in the light of the eternal nature of 
God, will explain all the facts of the Christian life, in 
harmony with the teaching of the New Testament. 

We have seen that Paul teaches or implies that upon 
all men God is bringing to bear influences leading men 
to repentance and salvation ; influences without which, 
as Christ teaches, none are or can be saved. It is 
evident that some men do, and others do not, repent. 
The repentance and salvation of the one class, being 
altogether a result of divine influences, is altogether a 
work of God in man. The continuance in sin of the 
others results entirely from their resistance to these 
universal divine influences. And it proves that these 
influences are not irresistible. For, had they been so, 
man’s repentance would have been exactly proportion¬ 
ate to these divine influences ; and therefore universal. 

All this is in harmony with the teaching of the whole 
Bible. For, as we have seen, the work of salvation is 
everywhere said to be a creative work of God, and on 
the other hand the blame of sin is ever cast upon the 
sinner. So Christ says, as recorded in John vi. 44, 
“ no one can come to Me except the Father draw 
him ; ” and, as recorded in ch. v. 40, “ ye will not come 
to Me that ye may have life.” And so elsewhere 
frequently. These correlative assertions can be har¬ 
monised only by the teaching that the work of salvation 
is altogether God’s, but that God has thought fit to 



Lect. XXX] 


CHRISTIAN LIFE 


265 


make it altogether contingent on man’s surrender to 
divine influences. 

This contingency is by no means inconsistent with 
the omnipotence of God. For this attribute implies, 
not necessarily the actual putting forth of infinite power, 
but a capacity for action limited only by the will of 
God. None can deny that God is able to exert real 
influences of which the practical effect is contingent 
on man’s self surrender to them. To deny this, would 
be to limit the power of God. Nor is contingency 
inconsistent with the foreknowledge of God. For, as 
we learn from our knowledge of what our fellows are 
doing, knowledge does not in itself involve influence 
exerted on the object of our knowledge. Therefore, 
as we know nothing about the knowledge of God except 
from the analogy of human knowledge, we have no 
reason to suppose that man’s free agency is inconsistent 
with full and certain divine foresight of all that man 
will do. This being so, the above explanation is 
not in itself inconceivable, or inconsistent with the 
nature of God. 

What is true of repentance, is true also of all sub¬ 
sequent stages of the Christian life. Faith in Christ is 
evoked in man by the preached word and by spiritual 
influences leading man to believe it. So Rom. x. 17 : 
“ Faith comes from hearing, and hearing by means of 
the word of Christ.” To those who believe the Gospel, 
God gives the Holy Spirit to be in them the animating 
principle of a new life like that of Christ In proportion 
as the believer yields himself to the guidance of the 



266 


THE DIVINE-HUMAN 


[Part IV 


Spirit and accepts the life which He waits to impart, is 
his own life moulded into the likeness of this supreme 
Pattern. Every Christlike thought, word, and act is the 
work of God in him, an accomplishment of a divine 
purpose: whatever is unlike Christ results from his 
refusal to bend to the moulding influence of the Spirit 
of God. Thus in man’s mysterious power to accept or 
refuse the good work of God in himself, we find ex¬ 
plained the many imperfections, and the slow spiritual 
and moral growth, of the professed servants of Christ. 

We have already learnt, in Lect. XXIII., that the 
continuance of the New Life is altogether contingent on 
man’s continued self-surrender to divine influences. It 
is therefore, both in its beginning, continuance, and 
growth, a work of God in man, a work conditioned by 
man’s free acceptance of it. 

This inference is strongly confirmed by the spiritual 
experience of the servants of Christ. We are directly 
conscious of a Hand from above guiding and raising us. 
And a review of our past life compels us to believe that 
we might have followed that guiding Hand much more 
fully than we actually did; and that, if we had done so, 
it would have led and lifted us into a richer and loftier 
life than we have ever known. 

From the above it follows that in the Christian life 
man is both absolutely passive and intensely active. 
He is passive: for every good thought, word, act, is 
wrought in him by the Spirit of God. But, inasmuch 
as the Spirit, moving men from within, ever prompts 
personal activity, man’s self-surrender to the Holy Spirit 



Lect. XXX] 


CHRISTIAN LIFE 


267 


is always followed by a corresponding personal putting 
forth of all his powers. And when he is most passive 
then is he most active. For, when we are completely 
under the influence of the Spirit, then are our powers of 
body and mind most fully put forth to work out the 
purposes of God. 

Another form of God’s work in man deserves serious 
attention. Even to those who reject it, the Gospel of 
Christ and the influences leading men to accept it are 
by no means without effect. For their spiritual senses 
are blunted by their resistance to the light. And this 
inevitable result of their refusal of salvation must be by 
the deliberate purpose and righteous judgment of God. 
It is the beginning of the punishment which inevitably 
follows disobedience. This purpose to punish is the 
dark counterfoil to the eternal purpose of mercy. Like 
salvation, this punishment is a work of God in man, 
contingent on man’s own action. But it differs from 
salvation in that its motive and origin are not in God 
but in man. We therefore infer that in the eternal past, 
prompted only by His own mercy, God resolved to save 
and bless, not all men indiscriminately, but those who 
would, as He foresaw, accept salvation, and to punish 
with blindness here and severer punishment hereafter 
those who should resist to the end His purpose of mercy. 

That spiritual insensibility is inflicted by God, is 
frequently taught in the Bible. So Rom. xi. 8, quoting 
from Isa. xxix. 10: “ God gave them a spirit of stupor, 
eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should 
not hear, until this very day.” In this sense we must 



268 


THE DIVINE-HUMAN 


[Part IV 


understand the twofold assertion in Rom. ix. 18 : “on 
whom He will, He has mercy, and whom He will He 
hardens.” 

The above teaching explains very much in the course 
of the Kingdom of God among men, and especially the 
slow and chequered progress of Christianity. It has 
been objected that the slow progress of the Gospel, the 
evils rampant in Christian nations, the many abuses in 
the Churches, and the defective morality of many 
Christians, disprove the divine origin of the Gospel; 
that if it were from God it would move forward with 
rapid and resistless progress, and bring all nations and 
all men to bow to Christ with unreserved submission. 
All these imperfections and this slow progress are 
explained by human freedom. If, as we have seen, God 
thought fit to give to man the mysterious power to 
accept or refuse His best gifts, and to yield to or resist 
His spiritual influences, we wonder not that in His 
purpose of mercy He resolved to respect the freedom 
thus given and to permit man to refuse the offered 
mercy. Admit this, and all is explained. Because man 
is free, the progress of Christianity has been hindered by 
all the influences which darken the mind and warp the 
right action of man. Because the Gospel is from God, 
it survived the hostility which at the first threatened to 
destroy it, has changed the whole aspect of human life, 
has become the accepted belief of all progressive nations, 
has thrown off many corruptions derived from the 
human imperfections of its advocates and adherents, and 
bids fair soon to cover the earth. 



Lect. XXX] 


CHRISTIAN LIFE 


269 


Moreover, it cannot be doubted that the slow progress 
of Christianity, conditioned by man’s free surrender to 
divine influences, is infinitely better than the mechanical 
progress produced by irresistible divine influences. The 
loyalty of freemen is grander far than the unconscious 
and perfect obedience of the planets in their orbits. 
That man is actually free to yield to or resist the divine 
influences leading to salvation, we have found abundant 
proof. It is equally evident that freedom to resist them 
is for man’s highest good, singly and collectively. And 
this freedom, taken in connection with God’s eternal 
purpose to save and bless mankind, accounts for all the 
facts of Christianity. 

The way of salvation, as outlined above, is in harmony 
with the teaching of the entire Bible. It is in harmony 
with the doctrines of election and predestination as 
taught by Paul: for, as we have seen, God’s eternal 
purpose to receive into His favour and conform to the 
image of Christ all who believe the Gospel involves a 
real election and predestination. It is in harmony with, 
and is required by, the frequent teaching of the New 
Testament that Christ died for all men, that God will 
have all men to be saved, and that salvation is altogether 
a work of God. It is also in harmony with the many 
warnings which imply that they who perish do so only 
through their own refusal of salvation. 

This teaching has been held in all ages, and is held 
to-day, by a large proportion of Christian teachers. But 
it has been confronted by another theory which now 
demands attention 



270 


THE DIVINE-HUMAN 


[Part IV 


CALVIN taught correctly and earnestly that salvation, 
from the first good desire until victory over death, is 
entirely a work of God and an accomplishment of His 
eternal purpose, that we should never have begun to 
seek Him if He had not first sought us, and that our 
seeking Him was a result of His drawing us to Himself, 
that our faith is wrought in us by the word of God 
and by influences leading us to believe it, and that every 
victory over sin and self is God’s gift to us and work 
in us. But from this correct teaching he incorrectly 
inferred that God brings to bear, in pursuance of an 
eternal purpose, upon some of those who hear the 
Gospel and not on others, influences which invariably 
lead to repentance, faith, justification, and eternal salva¬ 
tion ; and that the reason why these influences (without 
which, owing to the completeness of the fall, none are 
or can be saved) are not exerted upon some men while 
they are upon others is entirely in God and not at all 
in man. So Calvin’s Institutes , bk. iii. 23. 1 : “whom 
God passes by He reprobates; and from no other 
cause than His determination to exclude them from 
the inheritance which He predestines for His children. 
. . . The obstinate are not converted, because God 
exerts not that mightier grace of which He is not 
destitute if He chose to display it.” Also § 7 : “I 
inquire again how it came to pass that the fall of Adam, 
independent of any remedy, should involve so many 
nations with their infant children in eternal death, but 
because such was the will of God. It is an awful decree 
I confess ; but no one can deny that God foreknew 



Lect. XXXJ 


CHRISTIAN LIFE 


271 


the future fall of man before He created him, and that 
He foreknew it because it was appointed by His own 
decree.” Also ch. 24. 12: “the same sermon is ad¬ 
dressed to a hundred persons: twenty receive it with 
obedience and faith ; the others despise, or ridicule, or 
reject, or condemn it. If it be replied that the differ¬ 
ence proceeds from their wickedness and perverseness, 
that will afford no satisfaction; because the minds of 
others would have been influenced by the same wicked¬ 
ness but for the correction of the divine goodness.” 
And § 13: “let us not refuse to say with Augustine, 

* God could change the will of the wicked into good, 
because He is omnipotent. Why then does He not do 
it? Because He is unwilling. Why He is unwilling, 
remains with Himself/ ” 

This teaching of Calvin was derived apparently, as 
the last quotation suggests, from the much earlier teach¬ 
ing of Augustine. But Augustine differs from Calvin in 
supposing that all infants who die without Baptism will 
perish, whereas baptised infants will be saved; and that 
from some of the regenerate God withholds the gift 
of perseverance and thus permits them to perish finally. 
So Reproof and Grace ch. 18: “It is indeed to be 
wondered at, and wondered at much, that to some of 
His sons whom He has regenerated in Christ, to whom 
he has given faith, hope, love, He does not give per¬ 
severance : while to children of strangers He forgives 
so great crimes, and by imparted grace makes them His 
sons. Who does not wonder at this? Who is not 

utterly amazed at it? But also this is not less wonderful, 
19 



272 


THE DIVINE-HUMAN 


[Part IV 


and nevertheless true, and so evident that not even the 
very enemies of the grace of God are able to find out 
how to deny it, viz. that God makes to be strangers 
to His Kingdom, whither He sends their parents, some 
of the sons of His friends, i.e. of regenerated and good 
believers, who go forth hence in childhood without 
Baptism ; for whom He, in whose power are all things, 
might, if He would, procure the grace of this font; 
and brings some of the sons of His enemies into the 
hands of Christians, and through this font introduces 
them into the kingdom from which their parents are 
strangers; while neither the one nor the other, being 
children, have merit or demerit of their own will.” 
The same argument is found in Grace and Freewill 
ch. 44; Predestination of the Saints ch. 24; The Gift 
of Perseverance ch. 21. 

That the same argument is used by Augustine four 
times in as many different treatises, reveals its great 
value in his eyes; and suggests that his teaching that 
from some men God withholds influences which save 
others Was an inference from his teaching that, whereas 
baptised infants dying in infancy are saved, the unbap¬ 
tised perish. If this be so, the distinctive features of 
Calvin’s teaching about the divine decrees are derived 
ultimately from the ecclesiastical doctrine of Baptismal 
Regeneration, a doctrine rejected by most Calvinists. 

The teaching that upon some men and not upon others 
God brings to bear influences invariably followed by salva¬ 
tion, and that the reason why these influences are not 
brought to bear on those who perish is in God and not 



Lect. XXX] 


CHRISTIAN LIFE 


273 


in man, is utterly unworthy of the universal love of Him 
whose tender mercies are over all His works. And it is 
unjust. For it makes the ultimate reason why, while 
one man is saved, another is lost, to be in God and not 
in man. This implies that God does not treat all men 
on the same principles. It contradicts the abundant 
teaching of the New Testament that Christ died for all 
men. For He died in order that men who deserve to 
die may have eternal life: and if there were men from 
whom God had from eternity resolved to withhold in¬ 
fluences without which none can be saved, in no sense 
can it be said that Christ died for them. 

A strong protest against Calvin’s teaching about pre¬ 
destination was given by Arminius, Professor of Theology 
at Leyden, who died in A.D. 1609. His followers pre¬ 
sented to the States of Holland in A.D. 1610 a statement 
of their teaching, which was identical with that of 
Arminius, in the form of a Remonstrance in five articles. 
From these articles they became known as the Remon¬ 
strants. 

Of these, Art I is as follows. “That God, by an 
eternal, unchangeable purpose in Jesus Christ His Son 
before the foundation of the world, has determined, out 
of the fallen, sinful race of men, to save in Christ, for 
Christ’s sake, and through Christ, those who, through 
the grace of the Holy Spirit, shall believe in His Son 
Jesus, and shall persevere in this faith and obedience of 
faith, through this grace even to the end ; and, on the 
other hand, to leave the incorrigible and unbelieving in 
sin and under wrath and to condemn them as alien 



274 


THE DIVINE-HUMAN 


[Part IV 


from Christ, according to the word of the Gospel in 
John iii. 36, * He that believeth on the Son hath ever¬ 
lasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not 
see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him ; * and 
according to other passages also of Scripture.” 

Art. 4 is as follows. “ That this grace of God is the 
beginning, continuance, and accomplishment of all good, 
even to this extent, that the regenerate man himself, 
without prevenient or assisting, awakening, following, 
and co-operative grace, can neither think, will, nor do 
good, nor withstand any temptations to evil; so that all 
good deeds or movements that can be conceived must 
be ascribed to the grace of God in Christ. But, as 
respects the mode of the operation of this grace, it is not 
irresistible, inasmuch as it is written concerning many 
that they ‘ have resisted the Holy Spirit: * Acts vii., and 
elsewhere in many places.” 

It will be noticed (see Art. 5) that the Remonstrants 
were uncertain whether they who have received spiritual 
life can finally fall. Otherwise the teaching of these 
articles is in complete accord with the teaching of the 
New Testament as expounded in this volume. 

The Dutch followers of Arminius soon developed a 
tendency to Rationalism. And this tendency somewhat 
discredited their protest against the teaching of Calvin. 
But it seems to me best to reserve the term Arminianisnt 
for the actual teaching of Arminius which was formulated 
by the Remonstrants. And this teaching asserts clearly 
the distinctive doctrines of the Gospel 

The Synod of Dort condemned the tenets of the 



Lect. XXX] 


CHRISTIAN LIFE 


*75 


Remonstrants; and formulated five Heads of Doctrine , 
in opposition to them, and in general, though not 
complete, agreement with the teaching of Calvin. From 
these I quote, under the first head of Predestination , 
Art. i : “As all men have sinned in Adam, lie under 
the curse, and are obnoxious to eternal death, God 
would have done no injustice by leaving them all to 
perish, and delivering them over to condemnation on 
account of sin.” Also Art. 6: “ That some receive the 
gift of faith from God, and others do not receive it, 
proceeds from God's eternal decree : * for known to God 
are all His works from the beginning of the world:’ 
Acts xv. 18, Eph. i. II. According to which decree 
He graciously softens the hearts of the elect, however 
obstinate, and inclines them to believe ; while He leaves 
the non-elect, in His just judgment, to their own 
wickedness and obduracy.” Yet, with happy incon¬ 
sistency, under the second head Art. 6 reads : “ Whereas 
many who are called by the Gospel do not repent nor 
believe in Christ but perish in unbelief; this is not 
owing to any defect or insufficiency in the sacrifice 
offered by Christ upon the cross but is wholly to be 
imputed to themselves.” 

Art. iy of the Anglican Church, and the Westminster 
Confession of Faith , reveal the influence in England 
and Scotland of Calvin’s teaching. But in these docu¬ 
ments its harsher features are modified. 

Through the preaching of Wesley and the influence 
of the Methodist revival the teaching of Arminius, as 
embodied in the Remonstrant Articles, has obtained wide 



THE DIVINE-HUMAN 


[Part IV 


176 

acceptance in England and America. The Arminian 
modification of the teaching of Calvin is the belief, 
more or less clearly held, of nearly all the religious 
writers of the present day. So Blunt, Dictionary of 
Sects , etc.) art. Arminians> says, “In still more recent 
times, the dreadful dogma of Calvinism respecting 
Predestination and Election has been held by com¬ 
paratively few persons, at least in the Church of 
England, and the doctrine of Universal Redemption, 
for which Arminius chiefly contended, is not disputed 
by any Theologians of importance.” Also Canon Perry 
in The Student's English Church History , Third Period, 
p. 88, writes: “ It is hardly possible to exaggerate the 
debt which the Church of England owes to John Wesley 
in respect of his teaching on absolute decrees, particular 
redemption, final perseverance, and the other doctrines 
involved in the Calvinistic controversy. Had it not 
been for the consistent opposition which he maintained 
to these views, and the strenuous battle fought by him 
and his assistants against them, the cause of spiritual 
religion in the Church of England might have been 
inseparably connected with an antinomian system, which 
impeaches the moral attributes of the Deity as much as 
it excludes the proper place of righteousness in man.” 

Of the two great factors of the Christian life men¬ 
tioned above, Augustine and Calvin held firmly the 
first and chief, viz. that all good in man is a work of 
God and an accomplishment of His eternal purpose. 
But this great truth obscured, in their minds, the com¬ 
plementary truth that the actual result of these divine 



Lect. XXX] 


CHRISTIAN LIFE 


277 


influences is altogether conditioned by man’s free 
self-surrender to them. The former truth was held as 
firmly by Arminius and Wesley as by Calvin. But 
these later teachers added to it the complementary 
doctrine of man’s freedom to accept or refuse salvation, 
which Calvin rejected, but which is necessary to preserve 
the former doctrine from serious perversion. 



LECTURE XXXI 

THE ETERNAL REALISATION 


E have now traced in outline the salvation of 



man from sin and ruin, his introduction into the 


favour and family of God, and the nature, relations, and 
growth of the new life of the adopted sons of God, 
as these are depicted in the New Testament. We 
found all men guilty of past transgression, held fast by 
present bondage to sin which they were powerless to 
break, and exposed to future punishment. But we 
heard the voice of Christ proclaiming pardon and a new 
life of liberty for all who should put their trust in Him. 
We also learned that, in order to harmonise with His own 
justice the justification of those whom the Law justly 
condemned, God gave up His Son to die. And we 
learned that, to His adopted sons, He gives the Spirit 
of His Son to be in them the animating principle of 
a new life of unreserved devotion to God like the life 
of Christ. We found also that this salvation from sin 
and this new life in Christ involve victory over all hostile 
influences from without or within us, and a profound 
peace which no human or infrahuman power can disturb. 

This salvation, we found to be, from beginning to 


Lect. XXXI] THE ETERNAL REALISATION 


279 


completion, a work of Him who made man and the 
universe. But we found also that it was in every step 
conditioned by man’s self-surrender to the purpose and 
work of God. Just as in human life spirit and flesh 
touch and inter-penetrate each other at every point, so 
is the new life in Christ, to the fullest extent, both 
divine and human. 

From the nature of God as reflected in human nature, 
we inferred that whatever God does in time is an accom¬ 
plishment of a deliberate purpose in the mind of God 
before time began. And so closely related are the 
salvation of each individual, the historic development 
of the Kingdom of God among men both before and 
after Christ, and the material universe, that we cannot 
doubt that all these are mutually related and essential 
parts of one comprehensive and eternal purpose. In 
other words, matter and motion were created and the 
universe and our planet were evolved in order that this 
last, surrounded by the universe of stars, might become 
a platform for human life, an environment fitted for 
the moral and spiritual education of men. 

This eternal purpose has been to a certain extent 
accomplished. All around us is the material universe, 
the beautiful temporary home of the human family of 
God. In the happy experience of the servants of Christ 
we see a great salvation wrought by God, and in the 
Church of Christ, in its various branches, imperfect yet 
rising, we see the broad foundations of the eternal 
Kingdom of God. 

This present accomplishment is a sure pledge of a still 



28o 


THE ETERNAL REALISATION 


[Pari IV 


more glorious accomplishment to come. For, although 
manifestly divine, it is manifestly imperfect. The 
material universe is subject to decay. Upon all that 
lives is written the doom of death. And this decay and 
death limit the development of life. Moreover the 
things which are seen can never satisfy the deep yearning 
of the heart of man. If what we see is all that exists 
and will exist, then is either the creative purpose or its 
realisation imperfect. The present realisation is un¬ 
worthy of a Creator possessing infinite resources and 
wisdom, and moved by infinite love. 

Still more conspicuously imperfect are Christian men 
and Churches and nations as we see them around us to¬ 
day. Superior as they are to all that is non-Christian, 
in all that constitutes human excellence, they fall far 
below the ideal presented by Christ. If the present 
realisation of that ideal be all that will be, then is the 
purpose for which the eternal Son became man only in 
small part attained. For He came to save the world 
and to draw all men to Himself. 

Along with this imperfection, we notice, in all ages 
and before history began, indisputable marks of sustained 
progress. We see it in the progressive adaptation of our 
planet to be the home of life; and still more clearly in 
the development of life from its lowliest forms up to the 
appearance of man. We notice the general progress of 
civilisation. We observe also, in ancient Israel and to 
some extent in other nations, advance in a more spiritual 
conception of God and in juster views of man’s duty 
to God. Still more conspicuous is the progress of the 



Lect. XXXI] THE ETERNAL REALISATION 281 

Christian nations. The disgraceful contentions of some 
of the early Councils of the Church would be impossible 
now. No one can compare the state of Europe to-day 
with what it was a hundred years ago without gratitude 
for the change. In spite of many defects, and possibly 
occasional retrogression in certain details, the history of 
the Christian nations, especially during the last four 
centuries, has been marked by unmistakable advance, 
material, intellectual, and spiritual. Progress is evidently 
the law of the universe and the will and purpose of its 
Creator. 

This widespread progress, taken in connection with 
the imperfection still clinging to whatever exists around 
us, opens a sure prospect of progress still to come. The 
various social forces, and the guiding Hand divine, which 
have brought us to what we are, are still operating in the 
world and still guiding its destinies. A review of the 
history of the Church justifies a hope that a time will 
come when the ancient forms of error which still hold in 
bondage portions of our race will disappear, and when to 
a measure hitherto unknown Christ will reign in the 
hearts of men and in the social life of the world. 

But whatever progress may be in store for the present 
order of things, that order itself bears marks of imper¬ 
fection which seem to foretell its dissolution. Modern 
Science has done much to alleviate suffering and some¬ 
thing to lengthen life. But it gives no promise of 
complete removal of suffering and death. And these are 
strangely incongruous to the dignity of those who are 
children of a Father in heavea 



282 


THE ETERNAL REALISATION 


[Part IV 


It may be replied that the faithful servants of Christ 
will escape by death from all the ills which pertain to 
the present life. But such escape is a rending asunder 
of elements, spirit and flesh, whose union is a conspicuous 
and wonderful feature of life in all its visible forms, and 
evidently a part of the creative purpose of God. We 
ask eagerly whether our beautiful world is for ever to be 
a vale of tears and an abode of death. 

The writers of the New Testament, as we shall see in 
another volume, looked forward to the return of Christ 
from heaven to earth, to put an end for ever to the 
reign of sorrow and death, to close the present order of 
nature, to create a new earth and heaven never to be 
soiled by sin or darkened by sorrow or overshadowed 
by death, and to set up an eternal Kingdom in which 
every citizen will share the royalty of his Lord. 

This glorious City of God will be the final and com¬ 
plete realisation of the creative and redemptive purpose 
of God. Before the world was, that purpose stood, as 
definite and perfect thought, before the Eye of God. 
It was the ultimate goal of all other purposes of God. 
The creation of the world and of man, the mission of 
the Son of God, and the founding and development of 
the Church of Christ, were but steps leading up to its 
realisation. And in its foreseen realisation, the Mind of 
God, Creator and Redeemer, found from eternity, and 
will for ever find, its complete satisfaction. 

Every stone of that City will be laid by the Hand of 
God in accordance with a divine plan And it will be a 
work of man as truly as of God. Indeed, that it might 



Lect. XXXI] THE ETERNAL REAUSAT10N 


283 


be such, the Creator Son became Man, in order that 
as Man He might redeem both man and the material 
world. And the Son, in this great work, associated with 
Himself His adopted brethren of the human race. 
They share His work, that they may share His joy. To 
what extent they do so, depends upon themselves. But 
even man’s refusal to co-operate was foreseen by God 
and taken up into His purpose. Consequently, although 
it will exclude the individual from the blessings designed 
for him by God, it cannot prevent the accomplishment 
of the purpose of God. 

Thus the universe and human life in it began with 
an eternal thought in the mind of an intelligent and 
almighty and all-loving Creator: it will find its con¬ 
summation in the complete and eternal realisation of 
that thought The present universe and human life and 
history as we know them are the transition from the 
eternal thought to the eternal realisation. In that 
transition we are permitted and compelled to take 
part. What our part is to be, depends entirely upon 
ourselves. And upon our part in the process now going 
on, depends our place in the realisation. 



PART V 


THE REVELATION OF GOD IN THE NEW 
LIFE IN CHRIST 


LECTURE XXXII 


GOD OUR FATHER 


HE salvation of man and the new life in Christ 



J- which we have now traced in outline from their 
ultimate source in the eternal thought of God up to 
their partial realisation in the present experience of the 
servants of Christ, are, as wrought by God, a revelation 
of His nature ; a revelation verifying and supplementing 
that already found in the material universe and in the 
moral sense and the ordinary social life of men. This 
fuller revelation demands further attention. 

In the visible world, we found, clearly impressed, foot¬ 
prints of an intelligent Creator. And in the inborn 
moral sense, and in the manifest sequence of action and 
retribution, we found proof that the Maker of men has 
marked out a moral path along which He would have 
them go and in which path only they can attain their 



Lect. XXXII] 


GOD OUR FATHER 


285 


highest welfare. In the visible creation we see the 
resources of the Creator: and in the phenomena of the 
moral life we hear the voice of a righteous Lawgiver 
who will recompense every man according to his action. 

These results of our observation were confirmed by 
the great facts of the Gospel of Christ. For we found 
complete historical proof that these broad principles of 
Natural Theology were frequently asserted by Him and 
underlay His entire teaching; that He claimed to teach 
as one occupying an intimate and unique relation to 
God ; and that in proof of this claim He was raised from 
the dead. We also found proof that the moral and 
religious influence of Christ had changed for good the 
entire course of human history and life. The testimony 
of the Conqueror of death and the Saviour of the world, 
we could not dispute. We therefore joyfully accepted 
His word as complete confirmation of our own inferences 
touching the existence and nature of God. 

These inferences have now received further con¬ 
firmation, or rather absolute verification, in the actual 
experience of the servants of Christ. For they who 
believe in Him have found, in proportion to the confi¬ 
dence with which they accept and obey His teaching, 
an inward moral power raising and strengthening their 
own moral sense, enabling them more and more to obey 
its commands, and thus raising their whole life. In 
days gone by, they trembled under the condemnation of 
a judge enthroned within from whose judgment was 
neither appeal nor escape. The same judge now bears 
witness, in spite of much felt imperfection, to a sustained 



GOD OUR FATHER 


[Part V 


286 


growth of all that in them which is noblest and best. 
And this growth, being in harmony with that which 
they know to be the supreme law of their nature, is 
to them a decisive proof of the truth of the Gospel 
they have believed. 

This moral growth is, as a wide experience proves, 
conditioned by belief in an intelligent Ruler of the 
world, the Enemy of all that the moral sense condemns 
and the Friend of all that it approves. This faith in 
God we find to be day by day a source of highest 
blessing. This result of faith attests the reality of Him 
in whom His people trust; and in whom trusting they 
receive that which is better to them than all earthly 
good. For, unless their faith be an apprehension of 
reality, then are the noblest elements of human life, 
and life itself, unreal. Thus the daily experience of the 
servants of Christ reveals to them a presence as real, 
and infinitely greater, than the presence of their fellows 
around. In this sense, the New Life in Christ is a 
revelation, to those who possess it, and in some measure 
to those who observe them, of an unseen Creator and 
Ruler and Friend. It is personal intercourse with God. 

The Gospel of Christ, as thus verified, not only con¬ 
firms, but greatly enlarges, the earlier revelation of God 
in nature. A conspicuous element of the teaching of 
Christ and of the entire New Testament is that God is 
our Father. Indisputably, He who claimed to be 
Himself the Son of God, and vindicated His claim by 
victory over death, taught His disciples, as sons of God, 
to think of God as their Father. This term involves an 



Lect. XXXII] 


GOD OUR FATHER 


287 


analogy ; and makes every form of fatherly excellence 
among men to be a mirror reflecting, amid human 
imperfection, the infinite nature of God. It reveals in 
God a father’s heart which, in virtue of His relation to 
us as the Source of our being, loves and yearns for His 
children on earth ; and it assures us that, from His 
infinite resources, He will provide for, and guide, and 
protect us. It places us in a happy relation to the 
Creator and Ruler of the universe very dimly perceived 
until the appearance of Christ; and thus places the 
universe itself, as our Father’s house, in a new relation 
to us. In that Father’s love, the love of Him who holds 
all things in His hands, His people rest 

Involved in the fatherhood of God, and a very definite 
and conspicuous element of the teaching of the New 
Testament about God is His Love to man. This love 
finds conspicuous manifestation in the gift of His Son 
to die for man. So John iii. 16: lt God so loved the 
world that He gave His only-begotten Son ; ” an ex¬ 
position of the foregoing statement that “ the Son of 
Man must needs be lifted up.” Also 1 John iv. 10: 
“ herein is love, not that we loved Him but that He 
loved us and sent His Son to be a propitiation for our 
sins.” Similarly Rom. v. 8: “ God commends His 
own love toward us that, while we were still sinners, 
Christ died on our behalf.” And Eph. ii. 4: "God, being 
rich in mercy, because of His much love with which 
He loved us . . . made us alive together with Christ” 

In two of these passages, the proof of God’s love 

is placed in the intimate relation of Christ to God as 
20 



288 


GOD OUR FATHER 


[Part V 


His only-begotten Son. So also Rom. viii. 32 : “ He 
that spared not His own Son but graciously gave Him 
up for us all.” We have already seen (Through Christ to 
God\ pp. 215, 216) that the term Son of God notes an 
essential relation between two eternal Persons. That on 
behalf of men created in time God gave up to suffering 
and death the Companion of His own eternity, is, as the 
above passages assert, a supreme proof of His love to 
man. Thus the teaching of Christ and the Apostles 
about His relation to God is an essential element of 
the revelation in Christ of the infinite love of God. 
For the costliness of the means of salvation is a measure 
of the love which prompted it. And, apart from this 
eternal relation of the Father and the Son, we cannot 
conceive so costly a proof of divine love. 

The above teaching finds its culmination in 1 John 
iv. 8, 16, where, in connection with the love manifested 
in the mission of the Son, the writer uses twice the 
remarkable words God IS Love. These words give to 
Love a unique place among the moral attributes of God 
as the one quality worthy to be spoken of as a full 
account of the highest element of the nature of God. 
We never read that God is righteousness or truth or 
holiness. These are only partial elements included in 
the all-embracing attribute of love. To be unrighteous 
or untruthful, is to be unloving. Moreover, not every 
act of God springs from His righteousness or His truth. 
But every act or work of God is an outflow of infinite 
love. Even creation is such. God created man in 
order that in him He might have a created object 



Lect. XXXII] GOD OUR FATHER aKg 

worthy of His utmost love. And He created man 
foreseeing that his creation would lead, in consequence 
of his foreseen fall, to the death of the Son of God. 
Deliberately to create man, under such circumstances, 
is a manifestation of the love of God the most wonder¬ 
ful we can conceive. 

Love is then the central attribute of God. The other 
moral attributes are but the same attribute looked at 
from various limited points of view. The natural 
attributes describe the infinite resources at the disposal 
of infinite love. These resources, love needs for its full 
manifestation. In God we have infinite love prompting 
and controlling every thought, word, and action, and 
armed with infinite knowledge and wisdom and power. 

This gives us a conception of God the loftiest and 
the most attractive we can conceive. We see in Him 
an intelligent and self-determining Being, with unlimited 
resources, the Source of whatever in the universe is 
good, calling into existence other intelligent and self- 
determining beings, finite copies of Himself; and using 
all His resources to do them good. His wisdom we 
see in the many-sided purpose of salvation and in its 
wonderful adaptation to the needs of mankind; His 
supernatural power in the resurrection of Christ and 
in the salvation of men through Christ. And all this 
knowledge of God we owe to Him who claimed to be 
the Only-begotten Son of God. A still earlier revelation 
of the wisdom and resources and patience of God, we 
see in the material world and in its fitness for the higher 
life of man for which it was created to be the platform. 



290 


GOD OUR FATHER 


[Part V 


Another attribute given to God in the Bible, and in 
ancient literature peculiar to the Bible, now demands 
attention, viz. the HOLINESS of God. It is mentioned 
in the New Testament only in John xvii. n, where 
Christ accosts God as “holy Father;” Heb. xii. io, 
“that we may partake His holiness I Peter i. 15, 16, 
“ according as He that called you is holy, also yourselves 
be holy in all behaviour, because it is written, Ye shall 
be holy because I am holy,” quoted from Lev. xi. 44; 
Rev. iv. 8, “holy, holy, holy Lord God Almighty,” 
repeated from Isa. vi. 3. Notice also 1 Peter iii. 15, 
“ Sanctify in your hearts Christ as Lord.” 

In Lev. xi. 44, xix. 2, xx. 26, xxi. 8 God declares 
solemnly that He is Himself holy ; and on the ground 
of His own holiness commands the people to sanctify 
themselves and to be holy. In two of these passages, 
the holiness of God' is given as a reason for abstaining 
from unclean food ; a third has reference to the holiness 
of the priests; and another is a warning to honour 
parents, to keep the Sabbath, and to turn from idolatry. 
In Lev. x. 3 God declares, “ in those who are near 
to Me, I will be sanctified, and in the presence of all 
the people I will be glorified ;” similarly, Num. xx. 12, 
xxvii. 14, Deut. xxxii. 51. The holiness of God is 
conspicuous in the Book of Psalms: and in the Book 
of Isaiah (chs. i. 4, v. 19, xli. 14, etc.) we have the 
phrase “ the Holy One of Israel.” 

It is impossible to give to the word holy in these 
passages, where it is used as an attribute of God, any 
meaning radically different from that which it has 



Lect. XXXII] 


GOD OUR FATHER 


291 


throughout the Old Testament when applied to the 
various holy objects of the Old Covenant. Inevitably 
ancient Israel would think of God as standing in re¬ 
lation to the holy things and men they saw around 
them. They would do this the more readily because all 
the holy objects stood in special relation to God. In 
order therefore to understand the holiness of God as 
understood by the writers of the Old Testament, we 
ask, What do the sacred things of the Mosaic Covenant 
teach us about God ? What definite element in His 
nature do they reveal ? 

The answer is not far to seek. Moses, Aaron, and 
Israel, as they encamped around the Sacred Tent, had 
thoughts of God very different from their thoughts 
fn earlier days. He was now the Great Being who had 
claimed from Aaron a peculiar and exclusive and life¬ 
long service. This claim must have created an era in 
Aaron’s conception of God. By predicating of Himself 
the word holy already applied to the objects claimed for 
Himself, God announced that this claim was no mere 
casual event in sacred history, but was an outflow and 
expression of His own inmost nature, of a definite 
element in God Himself. God was now to Israel the 
God of the Altar, the Tabernacle, the Priesthood, the 
Sacrifices, and the Sabbath. The holiness of God is 
that element of His nature of which these are visible 
exponents. 

In Lect XIV. we noticed that in the New Testament 
the word holy is a frequent designation of the servants 
of Christ. This places the New Life in Christ in relation 



292 


GOD OUR FATHER 


[Part V 


to the holy objects of the Old Covenant. By calling 
themselves holy , they recognised that God had claimed 
them to be exclusively His own, in order that He might 
be henceforth the one aim of their every purpose and 
effort. Consequently, in the New Testament, the holy 
objects of the Mosaic ritual are patterns in symbolic 
outline of the Christian life. The servants of Christ are 
a temple, a priesthood; and their bodies a living 
sacrifice. And the significance of this symbolic lan¬ 
guage, and indeed the purpose for which the symbols 
were instituted of old, are expounded in many passages, 
eg. 2 Cor. v. 15, in which we are taught that God designs 
us to live a life of which He is the constant aim. As 
thus claimed by God, all Christians are holy. Un¬ 
faithfulness in them is sacrilege, robbery of God. 

This teaching, embodied in the word holy , conveys to 
us a new and very solemn conception of God. We 
think of Him now as the great Being who has claimed 
us and all we have and are to be exclusively His own. 
And, when we read that He who has sanctified us in 
Christ is Himself holy, we learn that this claim flows 
from His inmost nature, that in virtue of His own mode 
of existence He can do no other than claim to be the 
sole possessor of whatever He has created, and the sole 
aim of the entire activity of all His intelligent creatures. 
Just so, creation is an outflow of the inmost nature of 
God: for He can do no other than create. That all 
things are both from Him and for Him, is absolute and 
eternal truth. 

In order to reveal to men this element of His nature, 




L*cr XXXII] 


GOD OUR FATHER 


*93 


God claimed for Himself, in the infancy of our race, the 
various holy objects of the Old Covenant. This claim 
was embodied in the word holy . And this word God 
assumed as a description of Himself, thus making the 
sacred objects exponents of Himself. In Christ, God 
claims that all His servants render to Him their body, 
soul, and spirit, their possessions and powers, to be used 
for Him as the one aim of their entire being. And, 
noting that this claim is no mere incident in the divine 
procedure, but is a revelation of God Himself, in a few 
passages God is Himself called holy. 

In virtue of His holiness, God is the enemy of all sin. 
For all sin is disloyalty to Him, and robs Him of that 
which He cannot but claim. And in proportion as we 
are holy shall we be sharers of this divine hostility 
to sin. Thus the holiness of God involves, though it is 
much more than, His purity. 

We may therefore^ think of the Holiness of God as 
the essential element of His nature which moved Him 
to claim, under the Old Covenant, the sacred objects of 
the Mosaic ritual ; and which moves Him to claim the 
unreserved devotion of all those whom in Christ He 
rescues from sin. This is a definite element in the 
nature of God, and is suggested at once by the definite 
and conspicuous attribute of Holiness given to Him 
frequently in the Old Testament and occasionally in the 
New. It is a counterpart to that element in His nature 
which prompted Him to create. He is the Beginning 
and the End. 

The holiness of God stands, as do all His attributes, 



294 


GOD OUR FATHER 


[Part V 


in close relation to His central attribute of love. God’s 
love prompts Him to claim our unreserved devotion, 
because such devotion is, as we learned in Lect. XV., 
a condition of man’s highest well-being. For God to 
tolerate disloyalty in His intelligent creatures, would be 
unkind to them. The holiness of God is but His love 
looked at from the point of view of intelligent 
creatures capable of an aim in life. Indeed the 
scantiness of reference to the holiness of God in the 
New Testament, in contrast to its prominence in 
the Old, is due probably to the more limited attri¬ 
bute being overshadowed by the new and wonderful 
revelation in Christ of the great central attribute of 
love. 

To sum up. Beyond and above the visible universe 
with all it contains, lifeless, living, and rational, we see 
clearly manifested in His works an intelligent and self- 
determining Being, the righteous and all-knowing and 
all-powerful Source and Ruler of whatever good exists. 
His one purpose is the highest good of whatever H^ 
has made. This purpose He pursues with unerring 
wisdom in the selection of ends and means. Since 
intelligent creatures need a guide and aim in life higher 
than themselves, He has given Himself and His purpose 
of blessing to be their one aim, thus giving to their life 
unity and worth, in order that thus, by pursuing a goal 
higher than themselves men may daily rise towards 
God and thus attain their highest well-being. As 
loving all men and therefore treating them impartially, 
God is righteous. And, as Himself essential reality, 



Lect. XXXII] 


GOD OUR FATHER 


295 


as speaking and acting ever in harmony with reality, 
and as fulfilling ever His own promises, God is true 
and faithful. 

This fuller revelation of our Father in heaven, which 
at once claims for Him our reverent homage and our 
love, and gives us peace, we owe to the birth, works, 
teaching, death, and resurrection of the Son of God ; 
and to the inward enlightenment of the Spirit of God 
given to those who believe the words of Christ. Thus 
through the historic facts of the Incarnate Son and the 
abiding inward presence of the Spirit of God, God our 
Father has manifested, and ever reveals, Himself to 


man. 



LECTURE XXXIII 


THE SON OF GOD 


LREADY we have found complete historical proof 



II (Through Christ to God , pp. 215-300) £hat Jesus 
of Nazareth claimed unique superiority to all men and 
unique nearness to God. This claim we found to imply 
that the Son shares the infinity and the eternity of the 
Father; we noticed also that it involves a conception 
of God unheard-of till the time of Christ, but since His 
day the deep conviction of almost all His followers, viz. 
that in God there is, not one solitary Person only, but 
eternal companionship and love of Father and Son. 
This conception of God, we traced to the lips of Him 
who was raised from the dead, to the Author of the 
great religious impulse which has changed for good the 
entire course of human life from apparently inevitable 
ruin to sustained progress. 

In this volume we have traced the great spiritual and 
moral benefit of this distinctively Christian conception 
of God. For, the proof of God’s love to man afforded 
by the death of Christ has its root and force in the 
unique relation of Christ to God as the Son of God. It 
was “ His Only-begotten Son ” whom “ God gave, in order 


Lect. XXXIII] 


THE SON OF GOD 


297 


that all who believe in Him may not perish, but may 
have eternal life.” The relation of the Sufferer to God 
reveals the infinite cost of man’s salvation, a cost fore¬ 
seen and purposed from eternity. But for the existence 
of One infinitely nearer to God than those for whom 
He died, this wonderful manifestation of love would have 
been, so far as we can conceive, impossible. 

It would be unfair to infer from the foregoing that 
man’s sin was needful for full manifestation of God’s 
love to man. But, as matter of fact, in the death of 
Christ that love was manifested to a degree otherwise 
inconceivable by us ; and, of this manifestation of God’s 
love, the eternal relation of the Son to the Father 
is an essential element. How the love of God would 
have been manifested had not man sinned, is beyond 
our knowledge. 

The love of God thus manifested in Christ has spiritual 
and moral power. Thousands, in all ages, have said 
“ we love, because He first loved us.” All human love 
to God is but a reflection of His love to man. And, to 
love God, is the first and great commandment. The 
love to God and to Christ thus evoked becomes a main¬ 
spring of devotion to Christ and to God. “ The love of 
Christ constrains us : ” and, when we know that “ He 
died in order that they who live may live no longer for 
themselves but for Him who on their behalf died and 
rose,” we cannot refuse to Him the devotion He claims. 
Moreover, the love of Christ for fallen man kindles in 
His servants a like compassion. Their love to Him 
puts them under the mighty influence of His example. 




298 


THE SON OF GOD 


[Part V 


Moved by that example, thousands have lived lives of 
heroic sacrifice in order to rescue those for whom their 
Master died. In other words, the love of Christ mani¬ 
fested in His death makes easy the devotion He claims. 

We have seen in Lect. XXXII. that love is the 
central and all-embracing attribute of God. To reveal 
the love of God, is to reveal His inmost essence. God 
moulds the moral nature of man into a likeness of 
Himself by revealing Himself to man. He does this, 
in a measure otherwise impossible, through the self- 
sacrifice of the eternal Son, as manifested in His death 
upon the cross to save man. 

We notice also that every revelation of God, ana 
indeed the entire activity of God, are through the 
agency of the Son. Through Him (John i. 3, Col. i. 16) 
God made the universe, and thus manifested Himself as 
Creator. Through Him, and especially through the 
historic facts of His human life, God has made a still 
fuller manifestation of Himself as the God of love. 
Thus is the Son the eternal link between God and 
whatever is other than God. A mere unipersonal God 
leaves an infinite gulf between Him and His creatures. 
In the eternal Son, eternal as God is eternal, yet 
personally distinct from the Father, that gulf is spanned. 
And the Gospel of Christ, which reveals to man the 
eternal Son, places man and creation in a new and 
blessed relation to God. 

Another link, not eternal but created, yet occupying a 
unique relation to God, is the human body of the Incar¬ 
nate Son. In this sacred body, the eternal Son took 



Lect. XXXIII] 


THE SON OF GOD 


299 


visible and historic form before the eyes of men ; and 
the conception of the Son took definite form in the mind 
of man. The historic facts of the Son incarnate reveal 
His eternal nature, and are thus channels of spiritual 
power in the hearts of men. We are able, in the historic 
memory of our race, to bend over the manger in which He 
slept, to listen to His words of wisdom, to wonder at His 
works of power and mercy, to bow in silence before the 
cross on which He died, and with rapturous joy to look 
into His empty grave and on the face of the Risen Lord. In 
these facts we see, in concrete form, the obedience of the 
Son to the Father, His unreserved devotion to the work 
for which the Father sent Him into the world, and the in¬ 
finite love of God to man. Theeternal Son, thus manifested 
in human form, becomes the visible Guide of human life, 
and the most powerful stimulus to walk in His steps. 

So powerful was the influence of these facts upon the 
mind of Paul, and so real and intimate was His inter¬ 
course with Christ, that they became part of His own 
experience. Upon the cross of Christ, Paul himself had 
died, and with Him had risen from the dead and 
ascended to the right hand of God. No stronger proof 
than this could be given of the wonderful effect upon 
the thought and heart of Paul of the manifestation of 
the Son of God in the facts of His human life. 

Thus in the eternal Son, manifested in human flesh 
and blood, the unseen God manifested Himself to man. 

The picture of the Incarnate Son given in the four 
Gospels presents to us in Him, not only a human body 
of flesh and blood, exposed as are our bodies to hunger, 



3 <» 


THE SON OF GOD 


[Part V 


pain, sickness, and death, but also a finite human spirit, 
intelligent and moral, capable of thought, purpose, joy, 
sorrow, and moral earnestness and effort. This finite 
intelligence we detect in the growth in wisdom of the 
Sacred Boy, and in the ignorance of Christ, even at the 
close of His life, of the day of His return. And it is 
implied in Heb. ii. 17: “ it behoved Him in all things 
to be made like His brethren.” Without such created 
and human spirit, the human nature of Christ would be 
imperfect; as would be His example for us. 

This human nature of Christ must have been an exact 
counterpart, created and finite and human, to the divine 
nature of the Son of God; but distinct from it as the 
creature is distinct from the Creator. In proportion as 
the purpose of God is accomplished in us will our spirit 
become like the human spirit of the incarnate Son. 

To sum up. In the God-Man we see (1) an eterna 
Person distinct from, and derived from, the Father, yet 
sharing with Him to the full all divine attributes; 
(2) a created human spirit, sinless and perfect, an exact 
human counterpart to the eternal nature of the Son of 
God; and (3) a created human body under the inherited 
doom of death. This conception of Christ modifies, as 
we have seen, our entire conception of God. And, as 
we have seen, the short life among men of this divine- 
human Person has changed for good the whole course 
of human life and history, and will raise to the glory of 
heaven and to the likeness of the Son of God all those 
who accept the message of salvation which He brought 
into the world. 





LECTURE XXXIV 

THE SPIRIT OF GOD 

A NOTHER essential element of the divine nature, 
revealed in some measure even under the Old 
Covenant, but revealed with special fulness by Christ 
and in the New Life in Christ, is THE SPIRIT OF God, 
a divine counterpart, operating in the heart and inner 
life of men, to the eternal Son of God manifested in 
human flesh and blood before the eyes of men and on 
the open page of history. 

In Lectures IX. and XVI. we have already studied 
the work, and in some measure the nature, of the Spirit 
of God. These studies, we will now review and 
complete. 

In the Old Testament, the Spirit of God occupies a 
conspicuous place. At the creation, above the chaos of 
the as yet unformed world, we see Him brooding, 
Himself the Source and animating Principle of the 
order and life that are to be. At the erection of the 
tabernacle in the wilderness, the Spirit of God is said to 
have been given to Bezaleel and others, to enable them 
with divine wisdom to make a suitable temporary 
dwelling place for the God of Israel Thus men were 

301 


302 


THE SPIRIT OF GOD 


[Part V 


endowed with a skill above their own, and became in 
this sacred work the hand of God. In Samson again 
we see Him giving to the arm of a man superhuman 
power, and making him to be the arm of God. “ The 
sweet Psalmist of Israel ” declares, “ the Spirit of 
Jehovah spake by me, and His word was in my 
tongue.” And in the Old Testament and again in the 
New, we find the prophets speaking under a special 
influence of the same Spirit of God. In all these places 
we find the Spirit of God exercising the various 
attributes of God, bringing them to bear on man by 
direct inward contact and thus making man to be an 
organ of divine activity. 

That Christ would baptize with Spirit, was con¬ 
spicuously announced by John. And upon Christ at 
His Baptism descended the Spirit of God in bodily form 
like a dove. In various terms the Holy Spirit was 
promised by Christ as a conspicuous feature of the new 
era He was about to inaugurate. That era began with 
a wonderful outpouring of the Spirit on the Day of 
Pentecost. Paul and other writers of the New Testament 
teach plainly that the Holy Spirit is given to all who 
believe the Gospel of Christ, to be in them the animating 
Principle of a new life like that of Christ 

Practically, throughout the Bible, the Spirit of God 
is the Bearer of the presence and activity of God. 
Where the Spirit is, there is God, putting forth divine 
powers in the heart of man and making man to be an 
instrument of the self-manifestation of God. 

In the New Testament, we find other teaching 



Lect. XXXIV] 


THE SPIRIT OF GOD 


3°3 


shedding further light on the nature of the Spirit 
of God. 

On the evening of His betrayal, our Lord says, as 
recorded in John xiv. 16, “ I will request the Father 
and He will give you another Paraclete that He may 
be with you for ever, the Spirit of the Truth, which 
the world cannot receive, because it beholds it not, 
nor recognises. But ye recognise it, because it abides 
with you and is (or shall be) with you.” (The Greek 
pronouns here, where expressed, are neuter, agreeing with 
the word Spirit , which is neuter: but this grammatical 
agreement does not determine the personality or im¬ 
personality of the Spirit The word transliterated 
Paraclete is masculine). Similar language is found in 
v. 26: “ But the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, which the 
Father will send in My name, He will teach you all 
things, and will bring to your memory all things which 
I have said to you.” Similarly, ch. xv. 26, “ When 
the Paraclete comes, whom I will send to you from 
the Father, even the Spirit of the Truth, which goes 
forth from the Father, He will bear witness about 
Me.” Also ch. xvi. 7, “It is expedient for you that 
I go away: for if I go not away the Paraclete will 
not come to you ; but if I go I will 9end Him to you. 
And, when He has come, He will convict the world 
of sin, etc.” And in w. 13, 14: “When He comes, the 
Spirit of the Truth, He will guide you into all the 
truth. For He will not speak from Himself, but so 
many things as He hears He will speak ; and He will 

announce to you the things coming. He will glorify 
21 



3°4 


THE SPIRIT OF GOD 


[Part V 


Me; because of Mine He will take and will announce 
to you.” 

Very conspicuous in these passages are the repetition 
and accumulation of the same titles given t;o the Spirit, 
and the teaching that the Spirit whom Christ will 
send will be a more effective substitute for the Master 
Himself who is about to leave His disciples. 

The Greek word translated paraclete denotes, etymo¬ 
logically, one called to our side, especially one called 
as a helper. It is occasionally used in classical 
Greek and by Philo; always apparently in the sense 
of one who pleads before a judge. It has an exact 
equivalent, both in form and use, in the Latin word 
advocatus. In this sense it is used in the one other 
place in which it occurs in the New Testament, 
i John ii. i, “we have an advocate with the Father.” 
In the passages before us, however, the idea of pleading 
is absent; an advocate is not in any way suggested, 
except so far as the promised Paraclete will help us in 
our conflict by convicting of sin our adversary the 
world. His chief work is (John xiv. 26) to teach, 
and to bring to memory the words of Christ, and (ch. 
xv. 26) to bear witness about Christ. This connection 
of thought seems to compel us to fall back on the 
more general sense of helper , one called to our side to 
render assistance in any need. But I am not aware that 
the word is found in this general sense in classical 
Greek. On the other hand, in Rom. viii. 26 the Spirit 
is represented as helping saints by pleading on their 
behalf. Apparently, the Spirit pleads for them by 




Lect. XXXIV] 


TIIE SPIRIT OF GOD 


305 


pleading in them, i.e. by stimulating and guiding their 
own prayers. In the passages now before us the 
Spirit is clearly represented as a helper: and the 
associations of the word suggest, though the suggestion 
is not supported by the context, that lie renders help 
like that of an advocate who represents a man in a 
court of law. 

The title Spirit of the Truth suggests that the 
promised Paraclete is the animating and life-giving 
principle of the realities revealed by God to man, 
and especially of the teaching of Christ; that the 
Gospel is the organ used by the Spirit; and that to 
the Gospel the Spirit gives vitality and power. In 
close harmony with this, we read in Eph. vi. 17 of 
“ the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” 

In John xiv. 18, Christ speaks of the coming of the 
Paraclete as His own return to His bereaved disciples: 
“ I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.” 
Similarly, in Rom. viii. 9 Paul speaks of the “ Spirit of 
Christ” as the actual presence of Christ in His people. 
This implies that, just as, in Old and New Testaments, 
the Spirit of God is a Bearer of the actual presence of 
God in the hearts of men, so the Spirit of God is also 
the actual presence of Christ in the hearts of His 
disciples. This is confirmed by other passages which 
speak of Christ as dwelling in His people : eg, Gal. 
ii. 20, “Christ lives in me;” Eph. iii. 17, “that Christ 
may dwell in your hearts.” 

Already we have seen that in Jesus of Nazareth was 
manifested to men an eternal and infinite Person distinct 





3°6 


THE SPIRIT OF GOD 


[Part V 


from, and subordinate to, the Father, the divine agent of 
whatever the Father does outwardly and visibly. We 
have now heard this Second divine Person, speaking as 
a man among men yet about to leave His followers, 
promising to them another Helper to abide with them 
for ever. This promise suggests at once that this other 
Helper is also a distinct Person ; and that consequently 
in the Godhead are, not two, but three, divine Persons. 

This suggestion receives important confirmation in 
John xvi. 13, 14. In conspicuous apposition to the 
neuter form to Ilveyfia a\7]0eLa<; f the masculine pro¬ 
noun i/ceivo<; t which is repeated in v. 14 without any 
masculine term requiring it, arrests our attention. Still 
more important is the assertion “ He will not speak from 
Himself, but so many things as He shall hear shall He 
speak.” The Spirit is here represented as listening to 
the voice of Another and as speaking only what from 
that Other He hears. This attention to the words of 
another implies in the Spirit a Person distinct from Him 
to whom He listens. For, without two Persons there 
can be no listening of one to another. And that the 
Spirit speaks only what He hears, implies subordination 
to Him whose words He re-echoes. This verse therefore 
implies a Person distinct from the Father and the Son. 
That He is elsewhere called frequently the Spirit of 
God, and that His presence will be better for the 
disciples than the bodily presence of Christ, imply 
clearly that this distinct Person is also divine. 

The only explanation of the passages before us is that 
in the Godhead are, as Persons distinct from the Father, 



Lect. XXXIV] 


THE SPIRIT OF GOD 


307 


not only an eternal Son but an eternal Spirit. Other¬ 
wise these serious words of Christ would be practically 
meaningless. 

Had we only the Old Testament we might suppose 
that the term Spirit of God is only a circumlocution 
for God operating upon men from within in a manner 
corresponding to, though infinitely higher than, that in 
which the human spirit animates human flesh. But in 
these words of Christ we have much more than a cir¬ 
cumlocution for God. For we cannot conceive the 
Father listening to another and speaking only what He 
hears. The Spirit of God is therefore a Person distinct 
from, and subordinate to, the Father. And, as another 
Helper, He is conspicuously distinct from the Son. Yet 
He stands in closest relation to both Father and Son. 
The presence of the Spirit is the presence of the Father : 

1 and, armed with the powers of the Father, He works out 
in men the Father’s will. His presence in men is also 
the presence of the Son. Thus in the one Spirit dwell¬ 
ing in the hearts ot the thousands of the servants of 
Christ are present in them three divine Persons. 

The similar and subordinate relation of the Holy 
Spirit to the Father and the Son finds expression in the 
teaching that the Spirit is given and sent by the Father 
and by the Son. Compare John xiv. 15, “the Father 
will give you another Helper,” and v. 26, “the Holy 
Spirit, which the Father will send in My name ; ” with 
ch. xv. 26, “ whom I will send to you from the Father.” 
In the Epistles of Paul, it finds expression in the 
promiscuous and equivalent use of the term Spirit of 



THE SPIRIT OF GOD 


[Part V 


308 


God and the terms Spirit of Christ , Spirit of His Son. 
As an example I may quote Rom. viii. 9, where the 
“ Spirit of God ” and the “ Spirit of Christ ” are 
evidently equivalent. Compare also “the Spirit of 
God” in Rom. viii. 14 with “the Spirit of His Son” 
in the same connection in Gal. iv. 6. 

That the Spirit is a Person distinct from the Father, 
is suggested or implied in Rom. viii. 26: “the Spirit 
itself makes intercession for us with unspeakable 
groanings. But He that searches the hearts knows 
what is the mind of the Spirit, because according to the 
will of God He (or It) makes intercession on behalf of 
saints.” Intercession can be real only between two or 
more persons. That the Spirit pleads for the people of 
God, implies that the Spirit is a Person distinct from 
the Father. In 1 Cor. xii. 4-6 we have the Spirit of 
God conspicuously co-ordinated with the Son and the 
Father: “varieties of gifts there are, but the same 
Spirit; and varieties of ministries, but the same Lord ; 
and varieties of effects wrought out, but the same God 
who works all things in all.” Indisputably the Father 
and the Son are distinct Persons. And it is much more 
congruous to have co-ordinated with them a third divine 
Person than some circumlocution for, or attribute of, the 
Father. This is further supported by v. 11 : “ all these 
things works the one and the same Spirit, dividing to 
each one individually as He wishes.” 

In a totally different document, we find in Matt, 
xxviii. 19 a third name associated with the Father and 
the Son: “ baptising them for the name of the Father 



Lect. XXXIV] 


THE SPIRIT OF GOD 


309 


and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” This colloca¬ 
tion and the passages quoted above leave no room 
for doubt that we have here three divine Persons. 

The precise relation of the Spirit to the Father is 
veiled in mystery. But the analogy of the Son suggests 
irresistibly that the nature of the Spirit, like that of the 
Son, is an outflow of the nature of the Father. We 
notice however that the title Son and the filial relation 
involved therein are strictly reserved for the Second 
Person, “ the Only-begotten Son.” This implies that the 
mode of derivation of the Spirit from the Father differs 
in kind from that of the Son. In what the difference 
consists, we cannot comprehend. 

The only passage bearing on this subject is John xv. 26: 
“ who goes forth from the presence of the Father.” 
This may refer either to the essential derivation of the 
Spirit from the Father or to the historic going forth of 
the Spirit just promised : “ whom I will send to you 
from the presence of the Father.” In the one case, the 
promise of Christ is placed in relation to an abiding 
habit of the Spirit; in the other case, to His essential 
relation to the Father. But, since we cannot doubt that 
every abiding action of the Spirit is an outflow of His 
essence, this uncertainty does not lessen the value of 
this passage as illustrating the relation of the Spirit to 
the Father. We may therefore infer with perfect 
confidence that, like the Son, the Spirit of God also is 
an eternal Stream from the eternal Fountain, a Stream 
going forth, in virtue of the mode of His existence, from 
God into the hearts of men. 



3 io 


THE SPIRIT OF GOD 


[Part V 


In my earlier volume, Lect. XXXII., I proved that 
an overwhelming majority of the followers of Christ in 
all ages and nations have bowed before Christ as the 
Eternal Son of God; and I quoted in proof of this 
remarkable agreement a creed accepted formally or 
virtually by nearly all Christians. With equal unanimity 
they have received the Spirit of God as a Person distinct 
from the Father and Son yet sharing with them to the 
full all divine attributes. In the creed put forth by the 
Council at Nicsea in A.D. 325, the only reference to 
the Spirit is, “ and I believe in the Holy Spirit” This 
article was expanded at the Second General Council 
held at Constantinople in A.D. 381, in the creed now 
commonly known as the Nicene, which is accepted and 
recited in all the older Churches, into the following 
form: “ and in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and the 
Life-Giver, (to Kvptov /ecu to f coottolov ,) who goes forth 
from the Father, who with Father and Son is together 
worshipped and together glorified, who spoke through 
the prophets.” The conspicuous words, together-wor¬ 
shipped and together-glorified recognise the Spirit as 
occupying a place beside the Father and Son as a 
distinct object of worship. And this has been and is 
the faith of practically all who bow before Christ as 
divine. It is almost universally admitted that if there 
are two, there are three, divine Persons. 

In the West, apparently first in Spain, to the words 
M who goes forth from the Father,” was added “ and from 
the Son,” in Latin filioque. This addition is a legitimate 
inference from Jon xv. 26, “ whom I will send from 



Lect. XXXIV] 


THE SPIRIT OF GOD 


3 1 


the Father.” But it is no part of the original creed. 
The added word became a matter of contention between 
the Eastern and Western Churches. 

It is worthy of note that the personality of the Spirit 
is very much less conspicuous in the New Testament 
than is that of the Father and the Son. It is somewhat 
obscured by the neuter form of the Greek word for 
Spirit, the usual title of this mysterious Third among 
the divine Three. In grammatical agreement with this 
neuter substantive, neuter pronouns are always used, 
except in the remarkable case already noted in 
John xvi. 13, 14. The English revisers have, for 
theological reasons, altered in Rom. viii. 16 “the Spirit 
itself” into “the Spirit himself.” But this change has 
no ground in the original text. This neuter form,^ 
though it somewhat obscures, is quite consistent with, the 
personality of the Spirit. Moreover, it throws into relief 
the masculine forms used in John xvi. 13, 14 in close 
connection with language implying clearly the distinct 
personality of the Spirit. 

Perhaps there is spiritual significance in this com¬ 
parative concealment of the Spirit of God. We notice 
that in the pages of Holy Scripture, written under His 
special influence, the Holy Spirit ever hides His own 
personality in order that every eye may be fixed upon 
the Son. To this comparative self-effacement, the real 
personality of the Spirit gives meaning. For in it Pie 
becomes our Pattern and Companion, as none but a 
person can be. In proportion as we are led by Him 
shall we hide our personality behind the glory of the 



THE SPIRIT OF GOD 


[Part V 


312 

Son of God. If the Spirit were but an impersonal 
influence going forth from the Father and the Son and 
leading men back to bow to the Son and the Father, 
there would be no moral worth in this self-abnegation. 
It would be, in a sense, only mechanical. But when we 
know that the Spirit is Himself a Person, as distinct 
from the Father and the Son as we are, yet infinitely 
greater than all human personality, His action becomes 
our pattern. And in our self-sacrifice and in all that we 
do, and in our joys and sorrows, He becomes, not only 
our Guide but our divine Companion. This example of 
self-effacement, the Son cannot set. For His work 
requires that He attract every eye to Himself as an 
object of their worship and trust and love. Thus, in the 
Godhead, in the love and beneficence of the Father, in 
the obedience and self-sacrifice and devotion of the Son, 
and in the unobtrusive activity of the Spirit, we have a 
perfect pattern for every human excellence. This com¬ 
plete pattern, we could not have were not the Spirit of 
God a Person distinct from the Father and the Son. 

The word Spirit is frequently used, eg. Gal. v. 16, vi. 8, 
Rom. viii. 26, as a sufficiently distinctive title of this 
Third divine Person, even as compared with the Father 
and the Son, who are also essentially Spirit. This title 
is specially appropriate for that Person of the Godhead 
who comes into actual contact with our spirit as the 
immediate inward Source of our higher life, and the 
moving Principle of our thoughts, words, acts. The 
attribute holy , which also belongs in the highest sense to 
the Father and the Son, is given specially to the Spirit; 



Iect. XXXIV] 


THE SPIRIT OF GOD 


3*3 


because God is the one aim of the influence He con¬ 
stantly exerts. Every moment He comes forth from 
the Father that He may lead us back to the Father. 
All realised human holiness is the mind of the Spirit 
of God breathed into those to whom He is the soul of 
their soul and the life of their life. Hence the frequent 
term Holy Spirit. 

God’s work in man preparatory to justification (see 
Lect. VI.) is never in the Bible expressly attributed 
to the Holy Spirit. Yet, as the divine Agent of all that 
God works in man, we cannot doubt that through Him 
God leads men, as we read in Rom. ii. 4, John vi. 44, 65, 
to repentance and to Christ. The absence of any 
mention of the Holy Spirit as the Author of repentance 
may perhaps be explained as a reservation of the word 
Spirit for this Third Person when acting as spirit> i.e. 
as a living influence moving and animating men from 
within. On those not yet justified He may be said 
to act only from without The Hand of God is upon 
them : but the life-giving Breath of God is not yet 
within them. 




LECTURE XXXV 


THE ETERNAL THREE IN ONE . 

LREADY (Through Christ to God\ Lect. V.) we 



have seen the conspicuous and unique superiority 
of the Christian nations to all others ; that to them, in this 
age of wonderful progress, is limited all sustained progress, 
outside them being only stagnation and decay; and that 
this monopoly of sustained progress must be attributed 
to their Christianity, as the only element common to the 
Christian nations. We have also found, in human 
history and literature, abundant and decisive evidence 
that this superiority is due to a unique spiritual impulse 
given to human thought and life by Jesus of Nazareth. 
The unique and wonderful effects of this impulse, 
surpassing far every other influence exerted by man 
upon man, reveal its superhuman source. 

We have found decisive documentary evidence that 
the Author of this world-transforming influence spoke 
frequently and conspicuously about a Father in 
heaven, the intelligent and righteous and loving Creator 
and Ruler of man and of the universe. This clear 
teaching about an intelligent and righteous Creator 
and Ruler, absolutely distinct from and superior to 


L*ct. XXXV] THE ETERNAL THREE IN ONE 


315 


the world created and ruled by Him, is in complete 
harmony with the unanimous and emphatic teaching 
of the various writers of the Old Testament: but it 
stands in conspicuous contrast to the teaching of all 
other ancient popular religions. 

We also found (Through Christ to God , Lect. XXXIII.) 
abundant evidence that, while accepting and enforcing 
the strict monotheism of His nation, Jesus gave to it a 
modification unheard of till His day, except in faintest 
outline in the Old Testament. In contrast to the Jews 
who in all ages have held fast the oneness of God, and 
to the followers of Mohammed who, without claiming 
any historical manifestations of God or cherishing any 
bright hopes of future deliverance, yet hold fast the 
doctrine of one God and of retribution beyond the grave, 
the great mass of the followers of Christ have in all ages 
asserted that in the eternal and intelligent and righteous 
Source and Ruler of the universe are three divine 
Persons. And this remarkable modification of the 
monotheism of the Old Testament, we traced by 
decisive documentary evidence to the Author of the 
great moral and religious impulse which has changed 
for good the entire course of human life. 

This great change in man’s conception of God, Christ 
brought about, not directly by abstract teaching about 
the nature of God, but by claiming for Himself a unique 
relation to God involving His own pre-existence with 
God in eternity and His participation in the infinity of 
God. We found a man among men speaking of Him¬ 
self as the Only-begotten Son of God, as the coming 



316 


THE ETERNAL 


[Part V 


Judge of the world, and accepted by the two most 
conspicuous writers of the New Testament as the 
Creator of the universe; yet ever distinguishing Himself 
from God as a son is distinguished from his father, and 
as loved by the Father before the foundation of the 
world. We have just found in the New Testament 
other teaching, not abundant or conspicuous, but, as it 
seems to me, decisive, implying a third element in the 
nature of God, a Person distinct from the Father and 
the Son. And this teaching, thus understood, has 
been accepted in all ages by nearly all who have held 
the divinity of Christ. 

We have also seen (Through Christ to God , Lect 
XXIX.) that the teaching of the New Testament 
implies that the entire life and being of the Son are 
derived from, and devoted to, the Father, an infinite 
Stream flowing back in full volume to its infinite Source. 
A similar derivation and subordination, analogy compels 
us to attribute to the Spirit. Indeed the teaching 
examined in our last lecture seems to imply that the 
Spirit is subordinate both to the Father and the Son. 
In this essential subordination of the Son and Spirit to 
the Father lies the essential unity of the Godhead. 

That this somewhat complicated conception of three 
divine Persons in one God, a conception held fast in 
all ages by nearly all the followers of Christ, is due to 
Jesus of Nazareth, is an assured result of our theological 
research. 

In the above outline, I have used the terms person and 
personal. These terms, as commonly understood, con- 



Lect. XXXV] 


THREE IN ONE 


3*7 


vey the ideas of intelligence and moral character, this 
last involving self-determination ; and all that dis¬ 
tinguishes men from animals. To speak of God as a 
Person, is to say that that which distinguishes men from 
animals has a higher counterpart in Him. To speak of 
three Persons in the Godhead, and of the Son and 
Spirit as personally distinct from the Father, is to say 
that between Them is a distinction analogous to, and 
therefore infinitely higher than, that which distinguishes 
man from man. This analogy between the relation of 
the Father to the Son and that of man to man is 
asserted by Christ in John xvii. 22, u in order that they 
may be one, as We are One.” And it justifies the use 
of the term personal distinction as applied to the Father 
and Son. At the same time, all use of human relation¬ 
ships to describe the nature of God, even of those used 
in the New Testament, is liable, owing to the infinite 
difference between God and man, to serious misunder¬ 
standing. Yet, only by using these analogies and terms 
founded upon them, can man apprehend, and have 
intelligent intercourse with, God. We know Him only 
by those elements in man which are akin to God. We 
therefore need not scruple to accept the historical 
phraseology of the Church and to speak of One God in 
Three Persons, and of the divine and human natures in 
the One Person of the God-Man. 

In Lect. XXXII. we saw that the New Testament 
gives unique and conspicuous prominence to an attri¬ 
bute of God about which not much is said in the Old 
Testament, viz. the love of God. And we saw that this 



3*8 


THE ETERNAL 


[Part V 


fuller manifestation of the nature of God took place in 
the historic fact of the death of Christ, viewed in the 
light of the Gospel. Moreover, both in the Epistles of 
Paul and in the writings attributed to the Apostle John 
the proof of the love of God involved in the death of 
Christ is traced to the essential relation of Christ to God. 
So Rom. v. 8, “ God gives proof of His own love toward 
us that, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us; 
compared with v . io, " reconciled to God through the 
death of His Son,” and with ch. viii. 32, “ He spared not 
His own Son, and for us all gave Him up.” Similarly 
John iii. 16, “ God so loved the world that He gave His 
Only-begotten Son in order that every one that believes 
in Him may not perish but may have eternal life ; ” and 
1 John iv. 9, 10, “ In this was manifested the love of God 
in our case, that His Only-begotten Son God sent into 
the world, in order that we may live through Him. In 
this is love, not that we loved God, but that Himself loved 
us and sent His Son to be a propitiation for our sins.” 
In this manifestation of the love of God, an essential 
element is the unique relation of Christ to God, a relation 
infinitely closer than any relation possible between a 
creature and his Creator. This eternal relation within 
the Godhead reveals the infinite cost of man’s salva¬ 
tion, and thus reveals the greatness of the love which 
prompted a redemption so costly. Thus the doctrine of 
the Trinity, which, as we have seen, is implied in claims 
proved to have been made by Christ, affords a proof of 
the love of God impossible in a unipersonal God. And 
this is one chief practical significance of that doctrine. 



Lect. XXXV] 


THREE IN ONE 


3*9 


It may be objected that the above argument implies 
that man’s sin was needful for his full development, 
on the ground that apart from his sin the death of 
Christ would have been needless, and therefore the 
wonderful manifestation of the love of God therein 
given would not have been made, or, in other words, 
that we owe to man’s sin this surpassing manifestation 
of God. Doubtless, for the full manifestation of God 
to man it was needful that God should enter into 
closest relation to man : and perhaps for this end it 
was needful that a divine Person should assume human 
form in order that human life and thought might be 
permeated with life divine. In consequence of man’s 
sin, this manifestation of God in human form brought 
infinite pain to the incarnate Soa Had not man 
sinned, this manifestation would have involved neither 
death nor suffering. In any case, the actual and 
historic revelation of God to man in Christ would 
have been impossible had there been no divine Person 
other than the Father. How, in the absence of any 
need for the expiatory death of Christ on the cross, 
God could have given an equal proof of His love to 
man, passes human thought. But we cannot doubt 
that a Creator whose nature is infinite love was able 
to reveal that love to His creatures in such measure 
as they can bear; and that of such revelation the 
chief Agent can be no other than the eternal Word. 

Already in Lect. XVIII. we have seen that Christ 
is the supreme example of human life. This example 

receives its chief force and value from the teaching of 

22 



320 


THE ETERNAL 


[Part V 


Christ about His own dignity and His relation to God. 
Even apart from His divine dignity, we are greatly 
moved by His unchanging and self-sacrificing devotion 
to the work of salvation committed to Him by God. 
Even as a man, He claims our profoundest respect. 
But when we know that He who thus walked humbly 
along a path marked out for Him by God from the 
manger to the cross, never for a moment roused to 
resentment by the persistent malice and plots of His 
enemies, but speaking only to comfort and bless, is 
Himself the Creator and Judge even of His enemies, 
our respect is raised to loftiest adoration. In the 
presence of such grandeur, veiled in guise so lowly, 
yet in its lowliest guise conscious of its dignity, what¬ 
ever in us is best bows with silent awe. Henceforth 
any sacrifice made by man sinks into insignificance 
beside the stupendous self-devotion of the eternal 
Son. In Him we see an example before which all 
others pale. And this supreme and all-potent example 
we owe to the teaching of Christ and His Apostles 
about the dignity of the Son of God, teaching involving 
as we have seen, the doctrine of One God in Three 
Persons which found expression in the Nicene Creed. 

In Lect. XVI. we saw that this manifestation of 
God in Christ and the example of Christ’s obedience 
to God and devotion to the good of man are brought 
to bear on us by the agency of the Holy Spirit, 
who takes of the things of Christ and shows them 
to us by opening our hearts to understand the signi¬ 
ficance of the historic facts of His life and death and 



Lect. XXXV] 


THREE IN ONE 


321 


resurrection. Thus in the spiritual life of men are 
active all Three Persons of the Godhead. The Father 
is the ultimate Source of all good. From Him spring 
the universe and man: and the Kingdom of God, 
built up out of saved humanity, is an accomplishment 
of His purpose. “ To us there is one God, the Father, 
from whom are all things: ” 1 Cor. viii. 6. Moreover, 
whatever God does outwardly and visibly, before the 
eyes of His creatures, within historic times or before 
history began, He does through the agency of the 
eternal Son, the divine Person whose special function 
is to give to the thought of God utterance and 
realisatioa “To us there is One Lord, Jesus Christ, 
through whom are all things, and we through Him.” 
Whatever God does inwardly in the heart of man 
He does through the agency of the Holy Spirit, who 
opens our eyes to behold the work of the Son and 
thus reveals to us that which has been manifested in 
the Son. “ No one can say, Jesus is Lord except in the 
Holy Spirit: ” 1 Cor. xii. 3. 

It is now evident that, just as God created the world 
through the agency of the Son and the Spirit, so 
through them He now comes near and reveals Himself 
to His intelligent creatures. Thus within the Godhead 
are avenues of God’s self-manifestation, and of approach 
of God to man and of man to God. But between a 
unipersonal God and His creatures would be an infinite 
gulf across which they could scarcely hear His voice or 
see His face. He would be little more than a distant 
abstraction. And such is God to-day to most who 



322 


THE ETERNAL THREE IN ONE [Part V 


deny the divinity of Christ. They are further from 
God than are the Psalmists of the Old Testament. For 
Israel’s intercourse with God was greatly strengthened 
by hopes of a fuller revelation to come. But to 
thousands of busy men and women to-day the vision 
of the eternal Son incarnate for their salvation, and 
the felt presence in their hearts of a divine Helper 
personally distinct from the Father into whose presence 
He leads them and from the Son whose face He 
reveals to them, afford an intercourse with God to 
them otherwise impossible and inconceivable. 

That this doctrine of the Trinity is consistent with 
the unity of God, is verified by the experience of the 
servants of Christ In their spiritual life is no rivalry 
of different deities. To them, the Father and the 
Son and the Spirit, each reigning alone in His own 
sphere yet in perfect harmony, the function of Each 
Person supplementing that of the Others, are but one 
God. And in the essential oneness of these three divine 
Persons, myriads of worshippers find, and will find in 
still higher measure, their own unity. 



LECTURE XXXVI 

ANGELS, GOOD AND BAD 

I N all ages and races, the thought of man has peopled 
the immense interval between the greatest of sinful 
men and the Eternal First Cause with beings greater 
than man yet less than God. This deeply-rooted and 
often distorted conception, both Old and New Testa¬ 
ments accept and confirm and purify. 

The Hebrew word rendered angel is used in I Sam. 
xix. ii, 14, 15, 16, 20, 21, and elsewhere frequently for 
persons sent with a message or to do special work. In 
the Greek version it is almost always rendered by the 
Greek original of our word angel, which denotes in 
classic Greek one who brings a message or news, a sense 
somewhat narrower than that of its Hebrew equivalent. 
It is frequently found in the New Testament bearing 
the full significance of the Hebrew word. In Matt. xi. 10, 
Mark i. 2, Luke vii. 27, it is used for John the Baptist, 
as the herald sent to prepare the way for Christ. 
In Luke vii. 24, it denotes messengers sent by John to 
question Christ; and, in ch. ix. 52, disciples sent by 
Christ to prepare for His arrival in a Samaritan village. 
Elsewhere in the New Testament and frequently in the 

3*3 


324 


ANGELS 


[Part V 


Old, the word denotes superhuman messengers sent by 
God to do His work on earth. 

In Gen. xvi. 7-11, 2 Sam. xxiv. 16, 17 and frequently 
in the Old Testament, and in the Synoptist Gospels and 
in the Book of Acts, we find the term angel of Jehovah, 
of God\ of the Lord\ for the appearance of a superhuman 
person sent by God to make announcement to men, to 
save, or to punish. That in several cases in the Old 
Testament the angel was not at first recognised as such, 
proves that he appeared in ordinary human form. 
A very interesting case is given in Gen. xviii. 2, where 
Abraham saw three men and invited them to take 
refreshment. In v. 3 he addresses one of the three in 
the singular number, recognising him apparently as the 
leader. In vv. 20, 21 Jehovah speaks of the sin of 
Sodom and announces His purpose to go down and see 
whether it is as He has heard. We then read in v. 22 : 
“ the men turned their faces from thence and went 
towards Sodom; and Abraham continued standing 
before Jehovah.” In ch. xix. 1 we find two angels 
arriving at Sodom. This suggests irresistibly that one 
of the three had remained with Abraham, and that with 
him Abraham pleaded for Sodom. The two men tell 
Lot, in v. 13, that Jehovah has sent them to destroy the 
city. But, like Abraham the day before, Lot addresses, 
in vv. 19, 21, 22, one of the two angels in the singular 
number and prays to him only, thus recognising the 
one addressed either as superior, or as specially com¬ 
missioned to himself. 

It has been suggested that the “ angel of Jehovah” 



Lect. XXXVI] 


GOOD AND BAD 


325 


either always or in some cases, was the uncreated Son 
of God ; and this has been given as an explanation of 
the divine authority with which the angels sometimes 
speak. Indeed the angel of Jehovah has been appealed 
to in proof of the existence of a divine Person other 
than the Father. But this argument is seriously 
weakened by the fact that both Abraham and Lot pay 
special deference to one angel, but evidently not to the 
same angel. It is further weakened by the total silence 
of the New Testament about this identification ; and by 
the frequent use of the term “ angel of the Lord ” in the 
New Testament in places in which it can refer only to 
a created angel. It is disproved by the teaching of 
Paul in Gal. iii. 19 that the Law was “ ordained by the 
agency of angels ; ” and by the long argument summed 
up in Heb. ii. 2, “ if the word spoken through angels 
proved stedfast, and every transgression and dis¬ 
obedience received just recompense, how shall we escape 
if we neglect so great salvation .. . spoken through the 
Lord ? ” For this argument implies that the angels 
who gave the Law are inferior to Christ. 

Apparently, in Old and New Testaments, angels are 
created superhuman messengers through whom God 
spoke to men and worked out His purposes among 
them. That they sometimes bore apparently human 
form, was an anticipation of the fuller manifestation 
afterwards given by the Lord of angels in actual human 
flesh and blood. 

In Gen. iii. 24 we read of cherubs guarding with 
sword of flame the tree of life. And in Ezek. i. 5-25 



ANGELS 


[Part V 


326 


we read of four living creatures, each with four faces and 
four wings : and in ch. x. 1-22 we again meet the same 
four living creatures, who are now spoken of as cherubs. 
Similar mysterious beings are again mentioned in 
Rev. iv. 6-8, as standing around the throne of God. 
Their cry “ Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty ” 
recalls that of the Seraphs in Isa. vi. 3. We have here 
apparently another order of heavenly beings, not sent to 
earth on errands of mercy or anger but abiding around 
the throne of God in heaven or guarding His presence 
on earth. 

In Dan. vii. 16, x. 18 we find an angel-interpreter who 
instructs the prophet. In ch. viii. 13-26 one holy one 
bids another to interpret a vision : and the other, who 
is called Gabriel, does so. In ch. ix. 21 “the man, 
Gabriel” bears to Daniel, while he prays, a special 
revelation. Similarly in Rev. xix. 9, 10, xxii. 8, 9, an 
angel shows to John “things which must needs be 
quickly.” Yet he refuses worship on the ground that 
he is but a fellow-servant 

In Dan. x. 13 we read of “ Michael, one of the first 
princes,” in v. 21 of “ Michael, your prince,” in ch. xii. 1 
of “ Michael, the great prince which stands for the sons 
of thy people;” and in ch. x. 13, 20 of the princes of 
Persia and of Greece. These must be angel-princes ; 
and were apparently in special charge of Israel, Persia, 
and Greece. In remarkable agreement with this, but in 
a totally different connection, we read in Matt, xviii. io, 

“ their angels do ever see the face of My Father in 
heaven.” In Dan. xii. 1, Michael is placed in special 



Lect. XXXVI] 


GOOD AND BAD 


327 


relation to the general resurrection ; in close agreement 
with 1 Thess. iv. 16, “ the Lord Himself with a shout, 
with a voice of an archangel, and with trumpet of God, 
will come down from heaven; and the dead in Christ 
will rise.” Also in Jude 9 we read of “Michael the 
archangel;” and in Rev. xii. 7 of “Michael and his 
angels making war against the dragon.” The term 
prince , rendered in the Lxx. apx<*v> evidently reappears 
in the first syllable of the word archangel. 

These passages describe, even among those whom we 
may call ministering angels, in distinction from those 
who abide before the throne, a distinction of ranks. In 
Dan. x. 13, Michael is only one of the chief princes : but 
in ch. xii. 1, and in the New Testament, he seems to 
hold a place of unique dignity. 

Successive ranks of angels seem to be indicated in 
Rom. viii. 38, “ neither angels,* nor principalities; ” in 
Eph. i. 21, “all principality and authority and power and 
lordship;” in Col. i. 16, “thrones, or lordships, or 
principalities, or authorities;” and in 1 Peter iii. 22, 
“ angels and authorities and powers.” The word dp%a/, 
rendered principalities , again recalls the angel -princes, or 
archangels. 

In Matt. xiii. 41, we see the Son of Man giving 
commands to angels as His servants. From Heb. i. 4 
we learn that He is greater than they; and from 
Col. i. 16, 17 that He is earlier than they, and that in, 
through, and for Him they were created. 

The transitory glimpses of angels given in these 
passages are of great interest. In them we see intelli- 



328 


ANGELS 


[Part V 


gent creatures raised far above the weakness and sin of 
man on earth, and earlier than our race, yet children of 
our Father in heaven, created by and for the Son of 
God, our Lord and theirs, obeying and worshipping Him, 
yet ministering to the needs of us their brethren on 
earth. That they, so much greater and earlier than we, 
in their successive ranks bow to our Lord, reveals the 
infinite greatness of Him who was “ born before every 
creature ” and was “ raised beyond and above all princi¬ 
pality and authority and power and lordship and every 
name named not only in this age but also in the coming 
one.” 

In I Chron. xxi. I we read that “ there stood up an 
adversary against Israel and provoked David to number 
Israel.” In Job i. 6 we read that “ the sons of God came 
in to present themselves before Jehovah, and the adver¬ 
sary came in among them.” This “adversary” smote 
Job both in his estate and body. In Zech. iii. 17, “the 
adversary” stands at the right hand of the angel of 
Jehovah “ to be adverse to him.” 

In the New Testament the Hebrew word Satan which 
I have rendered adversary is frequently used as a proper 
name of a supreme enemy of God and man. Equally 
frequent as an equivalent name of the same great enemy 
is the Greek original of our word Devil , meaning 
accuser or slanderer . (Cp. 2 Tim. iii. 3, Titus ii. 3.) In 
Matt xiii. 19, 38, Eph. vi. 16, 1 John ii. 13, 14, v. 18, 
19, etc., he is called “the wicked one;” in John xii. 31, 
(xiv. 30,) xvi. 11, “ the prince of this world ; ” and in 



Lect. XXXVI] 


GOOD AND BAD 


329 


2 Cor. iv. 4 he bears the significant title “the god of 
this age.” In all the various writers of the New Testa¬ 
ment we find mention of one awful personality ever 
hostile to God and to His work among men. He is the 
source of immediate inward spiritual influences tending 
to lead men away from God. So Luke viii. 12, “ then 
comes the Devil and takes the word from their hearts, 
lest they should believe and be saved ; ” and ch. xxii. 3, 
“Satan entered into Judas, called Iscariot.” In Luke 
xiii. 16, as in Job ii. 7, bodily ailment is attributed to 
him. 

With Satan are associated other evil spirits, subord¬ 
inate allies in his evil work. So Matt. xxv. 41, “the 
Devil and his angels ; ” Rev. xii. 7, “ the dragon and his 
angels.” We read frequently in the Gospels, and in 
1 Cor. x. 20, 21, James ii. 19, of demons , who are 
evidently evil spirits. In Eph. ii. 2, we read of the 
prince of the authority of the air, of the spirit now 
working in the sons of disobedience.” This implies a 
spiritual influence subordinate to the prince of evil. 
Similarly, in ch. vi. 11, 12 we read of “the wiles of the 
Devil,” and of conflict with “ the principalities, with the 
authorities, with the world-rulers of this darkness, with 
the spiritualities of wickedness in the heavenlies.” This 
last passage suggests various ranks of superhuman foes 
analogous to the successive ranks of good angels. 

The above passages and many others similar imply 
that behind and beneath the various evil influences 
around us are personal opponents of God and man 
using these influences to work out their own deadly 



ANGELS 


[Part V 


33 ° 

purposes; and that behind all these, directing their 
activity and giving to it a hostile unity, is one mys¬ 
terious enemy, the changeless antagonist of all that is 
good. This realm of evil, acting under its chief, is an 
awful counterpart to the realm of good, material and 
immaterial, impersonal and personal, controlled by, and 
working out the purposes of, God. That evil in man 
stands in relation to unseen persons and a person 
mightier than man, is in complete harmony with its 
superhuman power and with the abnormal unity under¬ 
lying its infinite diversity. These indications of the 
presence of personal spiritual enemies give to the 
Christian life the tremendous reality of a personal 
struggle against superhuman personal antagonists. This 
is finely brought out in Eph. vi. 11-17. But He who 
has called us to the fight has armed us for it; and makes 
us in all things more than conquerors. 

Since whatever exists has been created by God 
through the Son, we infer with certainty that Satan and 
his angels are creatures of God. If so, they have fallen : 
and this suggests a probation in which they failed. This 
is taught in Jude 6, “ angels which kept not their own 
principality,” i.e. place of pre-eminence. So 2 Peter ii. 4, 
“ God spared not angels when they sinned.” For them 
is reserved punishment: Jude 6, Matt. xxv. 41. 

That some superhuman beings have fallen, suggests 
that all have had probation. If so, the holy angels 
have been victorious where others have failed. We may 
therefore look upon those happy spirits, whose joy is to 
help us their younger brethren, as having themselves 



Lect. XXXVI] 


GOOD AND BAD 


experienced the fierceness of conflict, and now as victors 
helping us who are still in the heat of battle. On the 
other hand, they who in that conflict have failed are 
using their powers to destroy others. In other words, 
the teaching before us implies that the influence of one 
upon another, for good or evil, so conspicuous a feature 
of human life on earth, extends beyond the limits of our 
race; and that the moral conflict raging all around us 
is part of a conflict wider than the great world in which 
we live and the race to which we belong. 



LECTURE XXXVII 

MAN AT REST IN GOD 

W E will now review the results attained in this 
second volume of lectures, and in some measure 
the practical results attained in the two volumes in 
which I have discussed the THEOLOGY OF PERSONAL 
Religion. 

We have found complete proof that man is an off¬ 
spring of a Father in heaven, created in order that in 
him eternal love may have an object worthy of Itself, 
an object to be enriched with the infinite wealth of God ; 
and that he was endowed with intelligence in order that 
man may know God, and with free determination in order 
that man may choose God as the supreme Object of his 
love and the goal of his entire activity. On this intelli¬ 
gent and free self-devotion to God, was made contingent 
the highest well-being of man. 

From this divinely-given goal and aim of our being, 
we have all turned away. We chose instead, as the aim 
of life, the fleeting things around ; and in pursuit of them 
we transgressed the limits marked out for us by our 
Creator. We thus fell under His frown, and exposed 
ourselves to the penalty threatened against sin. At the 

33a 


Lect. XXXVII] MAN AT REST IN GOD 


333 


same time we became helpless victims of the objects we 
had chosen instead of God to be the aim of our life ; and 
we fell a prey to the degrading bondage of sin. Thus, 
by turning away from the path marked out for us by 
,God, we wandered into a path leading inevitably to ruin. 

Of this frown of God, of this degrading bondage, and 
of this impending ruin, men are more or less conscious. 
A monitor enthroned within claims obedience to its 
commands: and we know that its voice is the voice of 
our Creator and Judge. These commands secured at 
once our approval as right and good; and evoked 
resolves and attempts, more or less earnest and sustained, 
to obey them. But these efforts only revealed to us 
more or less clearly and painfully the helplessness of our 
bondage and the completeness of our ruin. The only 
alternative open to us was ineffectual beating against 
the bars of our prison or the deadly sleep of spiritual 
insensibility. 

While thus we lay in helpless ruin, there came to us, 
from one who claimed the homage of whatever in us 
is noblest and best, a promise of pardon for past sin, of 
deliverance from the present power of sin, of restoration 
to the family of God, and of the Spirit of God to be 
in us the animating Source of a new life of obedience 
to God. These glad tidings of salvation, we traced to 
the lips of the Author of a great religious impulse 
which has turned back the whole course of human life 
and history from stagnation and decay to sustained 
progress. We learned from Him and from His im¬ 
mediate followers that this great salvation was brought 



334 


MAN AT REST 


[Part V 


about by His own death on the cross. We learned also 
that He claimed to be in a unique sense the Son of God ; 
and that in proof of this claim He came forth living 
from the grave in which He had lain dead. 

This promise of salvation, so wonderfully confirmed, 
we ventured to believe. The costliness of the sacrifice 
revealed to us the earnestness of the purpose of Him 
who, to save man, Himself became Man and gave 
up Himself to death for man’s sin. And the power 
which rescued from corruption, and restored to life, 
the body which lay dead in the grave assured us not 
only that Christ has authority to pardon sin but that 
He is able to raise us from the moral corruption of 
spiritual death. We therefore ventured to accept His 
proclamation of pardon and His promise of spiritual 
restoration. By so doing, we entered the number of the 
forgiven. And the proclamation of pardon for all who 
believe became to us, through our own faith, an announce¬ 
ment of our own personal forgiveness. Our faith was at 
once confirmed by an inward power over sin such as we 
had never before experienced. Moreover, moved by a 
new inspiration, we became conscious of a relationship 
to God not recognised before ; and, lost orphans as till 
then we had been, we found ourselves children of a 
loving Father and God. In this new knowledge of God, 
our intelligence, created by divine Intelligence in order 
that it may know its Creator, attained a satisfaction not 
enjoyed before. The new Spirit put within us became 
the animating principle of a new life, gave to us new 
faculties, and raised us into a new spiritual world. 



Lect. XXXVII] 


IN GOD 


335 


Thus our adoption into the family of God was confirmed 
by a new birth into a new life and a new world. 

Christ claimed, for Himself and for the advancement 
of His Kingdom, the unreserved devotion of those whom 
He saves. To this claim, the love manifested on His 
cross gave the force of an irresistible appeal. Moreover 
His work of saving the perishing and of building up, out 
of the fragments of lost humanity, a glorious and eternal 
Kingdom of God, aroused in us loyal enthusiasm. We 
accepted it as the one aim of our life. And this aim, 
thus adopted, gave satisfaction to our intelligence, and 
to our life unity and worth. We felt that the Master 
who claimed our devotion, and the object for which He 
claimed it, were worthy of all, and more than all, we had 
to give. And, moved by compassion for the victims of 
sin, and by the love manifested on the cross of Christ, 
we laid ourselves, our powers, possessions, influence, 
and life upon the altar already consecrated by the blood 
of Christ, with deep gratitude that we were permitted 
to join our worthless gift to His great sacrifice. 

In spite of this consecration, we soon found that 
the battle with sin was not yet over. Our inborn evil 
nature and the accumulated results of past indulgence 
in sin reasserted themselves, and strove hard to regain 
their lost dominion, and threatened to thwart our 
earnest purpose. We looked for help to Him who had 
promised to s^ive; and we ventured to expect it To 
our joy and gratitude, an unseen Hand gave to us a 
deliverance we had not known before. We found our¬ 
selves protected by the impenetrable armour of God. 

23 




336 


MAN AT REST 


[Part V 


This victory, however, we found to be conditioned by, 
and proportionate to, our faith. Whenever we wandered 
from our refuge, we at once became vulnerable, and fell 
back into bondage and sin. But even for this sad case 
provision was made: “ if any one sin, we have an 
Advocate with the Father.” We returned again as we 
came at first, and found in Christ pardon and liberation. 
Thus our whole spiritual life is wrought in us by God, 
but is conditioned by faith in Christ. Christ lives in us ; 
and we live in faith. 

The whole of life was now changed. The principles 
of morality which we had long recognised as the Law 
of God, but which had been only an external and 
constraining power, became an inward light guiding our 
feet safely amid the moral perils around. It became 
the voice and wisdom of that Spirit of God who had 
breathed into us new life and power. In this changed 
position of the moral Law, whose authority we dared not 
dispute even in our deep sin, now enthroned in the joyful 
homage of our hearts, we found additional confirmation 
of the Gospel which announced our forgiveness. 

Our environment was also changed. Our bodies, no 
longer a throne of sin, have become living stones of the 
temple of God. Our fellow-men, whose smile we once 
courted, and before whose frown we trembled, are now 
objects of Christian love and of efforts to bless. Our 
fellow-Christians are to us an abiding joy and strength. 
We are no longer at the mercy or mercilessness of the 
mysterious and irresistible forces of nature : for we have 
learned that they are in the hands of our Father in 



Lect. XXXVII] 


IN GOD 


337 


heaven, and are working out His purposes of blessing 
to us. Thus in Christ is a New Creation : the old things 
have passed away; they have become new. 

This New Life, like all other normal life, is marked 
by growth. The experiences of the service of Christ 
develop wisdom. Our daily intercourse with God in 
Christ affords increasing knowledge of God, of Christ, 
of His purpose to save, and of the way in which we may 
best advance it This increasing knowledge, revealing 
with greater clearness the infinite love of God to us and 
to all men, increases our love to God and the earnestness 
of our purpose to save those for whom Christ died. 
Every act of obedience makes obedience more easy: 
and every work for God makes work for God more 
delightful. Thus in a faith ever broadening and 
strengthening in its grasp of the promises of God, in a 
wisdom daily penetrating further into the mysteries 
and counsels of God, and in a love to God ever kindling 
into a brighter flame, the servant of Christ notes in 
himself the marks of spiritual progress. 

As helps for spiritual growth, God has provided 
definite means of grace. Among these, private prayer 
holds a unique place as a mode of personal approach to, 
and contact with, God, and a means of spiritual nourish¬ 
ment available for every one at every moment. To this 
may be added personal study of the historical revelations 
of God to man recorded in Holy Scripture. Other 
definite channels have been ordained by God in the 
social life of the Church, e.g. the preaching of the Gospel, 
the symbolic rites of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, 



33» 


MAN AT REST 


[Part V 


united prayer and spiritual conversation, and co-operation 
in various kinds of work for the souls and bodies of 
men. These have in all ages been means of untold 
blessing. They are the spiritual endowments of the 
Church of Christ, the company of His professed 
followers. Apart from them, the spiritual life would 
lack its needful shelter and nourishment. The Church 
has been in all ages and by divine appointment, amid 
much imperfection and sometimes deep corruption, 
the earthly home of the family of God in which the 
spiritual life has been guarded and developed; and 
the divinely-ordained agency for carrying the Gospel 
to the ends of the earth. This great topic will be the 
subject of my next volume. 

In the manner expounded above, and by these means, 
personal religion attains or may attain a certain degree 
of completeness. We have seen man, fallen from God 
and fallen under bondage to sin, now set free and 
restored to life-giving communion with God, to inward 
peace, and to harmony with his environment. But, 
though complete in its measure, this salvation is yet 
incomplete. For the servants of Christ are not yet set 
entirely free from the curse pronounced against sin ; 
and the real grandeur of their position is still in great 
measure veiled. We wait for the triumphant unveiling 
of the sons of God. Those living on earth are exposed 
to inward spiritual conflict; many of them, to the 
assault of bad men, to bodily and mental pain. Others, 
while delivered from conflict and pain, are but fugitive 
spirits exiled from the world which God created to be 



Lect. XXXVII] 


IN GOD 


339 


their home. For their complete victory over evil, and 
for the final and perfect glory, we wait for the foot¬ 
step of our returning Lord, who will transfigure the 
body of our humiliation conformed to the body of His 
glory, according to the working of His ability to subdue 
all things to Himself. This consummation, the necessary 
completion of the work already begun in the hearts of 
the servants of Christ, will be the subject of a fourth 
volume of these lectures. 

At the beginning of my earlier volume, I spoke of 
Religion as “such conception of the Unseen as makes 
for righteousness.” We can now supplement this 
general definition of all religion by a specific description 
of the religion taught by Christ. This last may be 
summed up as Loyalty to Christ and to His 
Kingdom. For such loyalty to Him implies a definite 
CONCEPTION of Christ and God, whom we have NEVER 
SEEN : and this conception, more than any other known 
to us, MAKES FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS. The transition 
from the general definition given before and the specific 
description now given has been brought about, in part 
by the revelation of God in nature, but chiefly by the 
historic revelations given under the Old Covenant and 
especially in Christ. By these means, our conception of 
the unseen has become knowledge of a Father in heaven, 
the intelligent and righteous Creator and Ruler of the 
universe and of man, who so loved us that He gave His 
eternal Son to become Man, to die for man, and to rise 
from the dead, in order to rescue man from ruin and to 
build up the rescued ones into an eternal and glorious 



340 


MAN AT REST IN GOD 


[Part V 


Kingdom of God ; and who now day by day sends forth 
His Spirit to be in them the animating principle of a life 
like that of Christ. We have found by actual and 
abundant experience that this conception of One whom 
we have never seen makes for righteousness. For it 
both gives clearness and authority to our moral sense 
and prompts and enables us to do what it commands. 
As a conception of the unseen resting upon abundant 
and decisive evidence, and as a stimulus to right doing, 
the most effective we can conceive, it is the highest 
form of religion known to man. And, as we have seen, 
the nations which profess this religion have a practical 
monopoly of all that is best on earth. Many indications 
attest that, before two or three generations have passed, 
whatever religion there is in the world, i.e. whatever 
conception of the Unseen making for righteousness, will 
be associated with homage to Christ. These external 
benefits of Christianity, and the infinitely greater inward 
and spiritual blessings which it conveys to those who 
embrace it, in proportion as they embrace it, and its 
spreading sway, are complete proof that this conception 
rests on objective reality. On that reality, thus re¬ 
vealed, we rest securely. In our darkness we have seen 
the Day-star rising. And already the Day is dawning. 
Towards that dawning Light, we turn our feet. Amid 
the darkness and dangers around, it reveals to us a path 
of safety, and cheers us on our way. The path is 
encompassed by foes ; but an unseen Hand protects 
us. And before us, far off yet full in view, are the 
open gates of our Father’s house in heaven. 



GENERAL INDEX 




PAG* 



PAGE 

Abba, Father • 

• 

• 

6 9 

Dort, Synod of • • 

• 

274 

Abraham’s Covenant with God 

233 

Faith . . • # 


X 4 Sff 

Adoption 


• 

53 ff 

Fall of Man . . . 


28 

Angel of Jehovah • 

• 

• 

324 

Fatherhood of God • 

• 

286 

Angels . . • 

• 

• 

323 

Filioque . . • 

• 

310 

Angels, Fallen • 

• 

• 

330 

Flesh .... 

• 

Sf 

Arminians, the • 

• 

• 

274 

Foreknowledge of God . 

# 

245 

Arminius, Teaching of 

• 

• 

273 

Freedom, Human . 

• 

255 ^ 

Assurance of Salvation 

• 

• 

75 ff 

Geological Remains of Man , 

33 

Athletic Contests of Greece 

• 

I 99 f 

Growth in the New Life 


208 ff 

Augustine, Prayer of 

. 

• 

146 

Heirs of God 

• 

55 * 

Augustine’s Reproof and Grace, 


Hereditary Depravity . 

• 

30 

quoted . . 

• 

. 

271 

Hezekiah’s Prayer. • 

• 

218 

Babes in Christ • 

• 

. 

212 

Holiness of Christ. • 

• 

no 

Baptism • • 

• 

* 4 , 

217 

Holiness of God . . 


290 

Bezaleel. • • 

• 

66 , 

* 144 

Holiness of the Spirit of God 

312 

Bible, a Means of Grace 

. 

217 

Huxley’s Lay Sermons , quoted 

259 

Blunt’s Dictionary of Sects, 


Intercession of Christ . 

• 

226 

quoted 

. 

. 

276 

Intercession of the Spirit 

227 

> 308 

Body, the Human , 

• 

• 

5 f 

John the Baptist . 

. 

112 

Book of Life, the . 

. 

• 

248 

Justification . • • 

• 

48 

Calvin’s Institutes, quoted 

• 

270 

Kadesh. • • • 


100 

Cherubs . • 

• 

• 

325 

Korah .... 

. 

117 

Children of God . 

• 

• 

52 

Law, Antagonism of Paul to 


Christ, Divinity of. 

• 

• 

316 

the . . • 

. 

187 

Church of Christ, the 

• 

• 

229 

Law of God . • • 

. 

l82ff 

Creation of Matter 

• 

• 

250 

Levitical Ritual • • 

. 

125 

Death, Spiritual • 

• 

• 

2of 

Life, Origin of . , 

. 

251 

Demons • • 

• 

• 

329 

Love of God to Man • 

135 

287 

Devil, the . s 

• 

• 

328 

Love to God . • • 

. 

132 


34* 






342 


GENERAL INDEX 


Michael, the Angel-prince 

PAGE 

. 3 26 

Repentance • • 

• 

PAGE 

. 47 

Mill’s Logic , quoted . 

• 257 

Saints . • • 

• 

116, 118 

Moral Sense, the . 

. Ilf 

Samson. • • 

• 

66, 144 

Natural Depravity .. 

• 2 5 

Sanctification • 

• 

. 95 ff 

Natural Law in Relation 

to 

Sanctifying Faith • 

• 

153 

Prayer . . • 

. 225 

Satan . . • 

• 

. 3 2 8 

Nazarite, the. . . 

. 106 

Sin in Believers • 

• 

. i 75 f f 

Necessity, Doctrine of • 

. 258 

Sin, Nature of • 

• 

• 43-45 

Nicene Creed . • 

. 310 

Sons of God . 

• 

. 5 off 

Objective Holiness 

. 99 

Spencer’s Synthetic 

Philo - 

Paul’s Requests for Prayer 

. 220 

sophy , quoted 

. 

• 259 

Paraclete, the 

• 303 * 

Spencer’s Psychology , quoted. 259 

Perry’s English Church His - 

Spirit, Nature of . 

• 

• 5 

tory , quoted 

. 276 

Spirit of Adoption. 

• 

. 6 3 ff 

Perseverance of Believers 

. 204ff 

Spirit of the Truth 

• 

. 3 ° 5 f 

Personality of God 

• 317 

Subjective Holiness 

• 

. 100 

Personality of the Spirit 

. 306-8 

Supper of the Lord 

• 

. 217 

Prayer .... 

. 2l8ff 

Trinity, the . 

• 

. 32if 

Preaching the Gospel • 

. 215 

Wesley’s Teaching on 

Predes- 

Predestination . • 

. 247 

tination 

. 

275 . 277 

Procession of the Spirit. 

. 309 

Westminster Confession 

of 

Religion, Definition of . 

• 339 

Faith. 

• 

. 275 

Remonstrant Articles quoted . 273 

Witness of the Spirit 

9 

• 73 ff 




INDEX TO THE PRINCIPAL PASSAGES OF HOLY 
SCRIPTURE REFERRED TO IN THIS VOLUME 


PAGE 

Genesis 


i. 26 . 

. 

162 

i. 26-28 . 

. 

58 

L 29 . 

• 

122 

ii. 3 • 

. 

97 

7 • 9 > IS, 58 , 

142 

u. 17 . 

• 

28 

iii. 24. 

• 

325 

iv. 20, 22 • 

• 

33 

ix. 3 . • 

• 

122 

xiv. 7 . . 

• 

100 

XV. 3, 4, 8 . 

• 

56 

xvi. 7-11 . 

• 

324 

xvi. 14 

• 

100 

xvui. 2, 3, 20-22 . 

324 

xix. 1, 13, 19-22. 

324 

XX. I . 

• 

100 

xxxviii. 21 . 

• 

100 

1. 12 . 

• 

193 

Exodus 


iii. 5 . 

. 

94 

iv. 22f • 

51 

, 55 

xiii. 2, 12 • 

• 

95 

xix. 6 . • 

• 

95 

xix. 14 • 

• 

99 

xix. 22 • 

• 

100 

xix. 23 • 


97 

xx. 8, II • 

97 . 

100 

XX. II • 

• 

99 

xxv. 8 • 

• 

97 

xxvi. 33 

• 

97 

xxviii. 41 • 

• 

99 


OLD TESTAMENT 


xxix. I • 

PAGE 

99 

xxix. 21 • 

. 98 

xxix. 37 • 

• 97 f 

xxix. 44 . 

• 99 

xxx. 29 • 

• 97 * 

xxx. 32 • 

• 98 

xxxi. 2f . 

. 66 

xxxi. 14 . 

• 97 

xxxii. 11-14 

• 218 

xxxiii. 23 . 

. 218 

xl. 9-13 • 

• 99 

Leviticus 

ii. 3 

. 97 

vi. 18 . • 

. 98 

x. 3 . • 

. 290 

xi. 44 . 

100, 290 

xi. 45. 

. 96 

xix. 18 • 

. 134 

xix. 24 • 

. 98 

xx. 26 . 

. 96 

xxvii. 9-21, 28f • 98 

xxvii. 14 . 

. 100 


Numbers 


iii. I2f . 95, 99 

vi. 5, 8, 20 . . 98 

viii. i6f • . 95 

xiii. 26 . . 100 

xvi. 3, 5, 10 . 117 

xvi. 38 . ,98 


PAGE 

Deuteronomy 


iv. 1, etc. . 


56 

vi. 4f . . 

• 

132 

vii. 6 . • 

• 

98 

xv. 19. « 

• 

95 

xxiii. 17 • 

• 

100 

xxx. 6. • 

• 

146 

Joshua 



iii. 5 . 

• 

101 

v. 15 . 

• 

IOI 

vi. 19. • 

• 

IOI 

xx. 7 • • 


loof 

Judges 



xiii. 25 • 

• 

66 

xiv. 5f . 

• 

66 

xvii. 3 . 

• 

IOI 

i Samuel 


xix. 11-21 . 

• 

323 

2 Samuel 


vii. 14 

• 

5 i 

xxiii. if . 

# 

66 

xxiv. i6f . 

• 

324 

2 Kings 


iv. 9 . 

• 

102 

1 Chronicles 

vi. 72 . 

. 

100 

xxL I . . 

. 

328 


343 












344 


INDEX TO PASSAGES OF SCRIPTURE 




PAGE 

PAGE 



PAGE 

2 Chronicles 


lxxxix. 5, 7 • 

IOI 

xxviii. 18 . 

• 

104 

xxiii. 6 

• 

102, 

117 

cvi. 16 . • 

IOI 

xxxvi. 25 . 

• 

I46 





cxix. 97, 105 . 

187 




Nehemiah 




Daniel 



xi. i , 

• 

• 

108 

Isaiah. 


vii. 16 

. 

326 





i. 4 . 

290 

vii. 18, 22, 25, 27 



Job 



iv. 3 • 

102 

102 

117 

i. 5 • 

• 

• 

IOI 

vi. 3 . . 290, 

326 

IX. 21 . 

. 

326 

i. 6 . 

• 

50, 328 

xxix. 10 . 

267 

X. 13, 18, 20 f 

• 

326 

ii. 7 • 

• 

• 

329 

xxxvii. 14-35 

2l8 

xii. I . 

• 

326 

V. I . 

• 

• 

IOI 

lviii. 13 

97 




XV. 14. 

• 

• 

27 

lxii. 12 

102 

Hosea 



XV. 15 . 

• 

• 

IOI 



i. 10 . 

• 

5 1 

xxxviii. 7 

• 

• 

5 ° 

Jeremiah 









i. 5 • 

109 

Joel 



Psalms 




ii. 28f 

• 

146 

xvi. 3. 

# 

• 

IOI 

Ezekiel 





xxxiv. 9 

• 

• 

IOI 

i. 5-25 

325 

Zechariah 


li. 4f . 

• 

• 

26 

ii. 1, 2 • • 

67 

iii. 17 . • 

• 

328 

li. 7, IO 

• 

• 

*47 

X. 1-22 . . 

326 

xiv. 2of • 

* 

102 


NEW TESTAMENT 


Matthew 



Mark 



xiii. 16 • 

• 

329 

i. 21 . 

• 

• 

175 

i. 2 . 

• 

• 

323 

xiii. 24 • 

• 

I98 

iii. 11 . 

• 

• 

65 

i. 24 . 

• 

. 

no 

xv. n, 24 . 

• 

58 

iv* 5 • 


• 

108 

v. 41 . 

• 

. 

69 

XX. 36 

0 

53 

iv. 21 . 

• 

• 

210 

vi. 20. 

• 

109, 

112 

xxii. 3 . 

0 

329 

v. 9, 44! 

• 

• 

53 

vii. 34. 

• 


69 




v. 16, 45 

• 

• 

58 

ix. 23 . 

• 

• 

152 

JOHN 


vi. 9-13 


• 

219 

xi. 22 . 

• 

• 

*53 

1. 3, IO, 17 . 


161 

vi. 24-34 

• 

• 

192 

xi. 23f 

• 

. 

222 

i. 12 . 

52, 60, 83 

vii. 7 . 

• 

• 

219 

xi. 25 . 

• 

• 

58 

i. 13 • 

0 

85 

ix. 22, 29 

• 

• 

*52 

xiv. 36 

• 

69, 218 

i- 26, 33 . 

• 

84 

x. 20 . 

• 

• 

65 

xv. 34 

• 

• 

69 

ii. 21 . • 

• 

iii 

xi. 10 . 

• 

• 

323 

xvi. 15 


0 

215 

iii. 3-8 • 

• 

84 

xi. 29. 

• 

0 

164 





iii. 5 . • 

• 

88 

xiii. 19, 38 

• 

• 

328 


Luke 



iii. 5f . • 

• 

27 

xiii. 41 

• 

• 

327 

i* 35 • 

• 

• 

no 

iii. 16 . • 

0 

287 

xvi. 17 

• 

• 

9 

i. 70 . 

• 

• 

109 

iii. 17 . • 

0 

161 

xviii. 10 

• 

• 

326 

ii. 22-24 . 

0 

182 

iii. 36 . 

0 

21 

xix. 28 

• 

• 

170 

ii. 23 . 

• 

0 

108 

iv. 34 • 

0 

iii 

xxi. 22 

• 

• 

152 

vi. 12 . 


0 

218 

v. 19, 30 • 

• 

iii 

xxii. 38 

• 

• 

132 

vi. 36 . 

• 

0 

58 

v. 24 . • 

21, 8l 

xxii. 39 

• 

• 

134 

vii. 24, 

27 . 

0 

323 

V. 36 . • 

0 

73 

xxin. 17, 19 

• 

108 

viii. 12 

• 

• 

329 

v. 40 . • 

0 

264 

XXIV. 15 

• 

• 

108 

ix. 26 * 

• 

0 

109 

vi. 38 . • 

0 

iii 

XXV. 41 

• 

• 

3 2 9 f 

ix. 52 . 

• 

• 

323 

vi. 44 . . 

0 

264 

xxvii. 53 

• 

• 

108 

xi. 2 . 

• 

• 

219 

vi. 44f 

0 

40 

xxviii. 19 

• 

• 

308 

xi. iff. 

• 

! 4 3, 219 

1 vi. 56 . . 

0 

166 













INDEX TO PASSAGES OF SCRIPTURE 


vi. 69 . 

PAGE 

. no 

xiv. 3, 17 . 

PAGE 

• 73 

viii. 3f 

• 

PAGE 

. I84 

vii. 38. 

, 5 I * 

153 

xv. 8 . . 

• 73 

viii. 4 . 

• 

8 

vm. 32-36 . 

• 

19 

xv. 9 . . 

. 177 

viii. 8 . 

• 

22, 41 

vm. 43 

• 

53 

xvii. 2Sf • 

• 57 

viii. 9 . 

• 

• 305 

viii. 44 # 

• 

28 

XX. 32. • 

. 56 

viii. IO 

• 

144, 165 

ix. 3 . . 

• 

193 

xxi. 28 • 

. 108 

viii. 12-14 

• 

• 7i 

x. 25 . . 

• 

73 

xxii. 16 • 

. 88 

viii. 12-17 

• 

• 75 

x. 28 . • 

• 

206 

xxviii. 25 . 

• 67 

viii. 13 

• 

8, 179 

X. 36 • • 

xi. 4 . • 

• 

• 

no 

193 

Romans 

viii. 14 
viii. 14-16 

• 

• 

. 210 
. 72 

xn. 31 

• 

328 

i» 4 • • 

. no 

viii. 14-16, 

19 

21 52 

xiii. 15 • 

• 

163 

i. 7 . 

• “5 

viii. 15 

53, 69, 227 

xiv. 6 . • 

• 

161 

i. 11 . 

. 210 

viii. 15-18 


. 76 

xiv. 13f . 

• 

219 

i. 24, 26, 28 

. 18 

viii. 16 


66, 73 

xiv. 15, 26 . 

• 

307 

ii. 1-29 . 

. 82 

viii. 17 


55. *68 

xiv. i6f . 

• 

<>5 

ii* 4 ' * 

4°, 42 
73* 182 

viii. 18 


. 204 

xiv. 16, 26 . 

• 

3°3 

ii. 15 . • 

viii. 19 


. 55 

xiv. 18 • 

• 

305 

ii. 26f • 

. 41 

viii. 19-23 


• 35 

xiv. 20 

• 

167 

iii. 19 . • 

23, 182 

viii. 23 


• 54 

XV. 1-8 • 

• 

166 

iii. 20. • 

9 

viii. 26 227, 

304* 308 

xv. 4f . • 

• 

167 

iii. 24 . 

• 165 

viii. 27 


• n 5 

xv. 6 . • 

• 

206 

iii. 25 . • 

• 32 

viii. 28 134, 

192, 245 

xv. 7 . 

219, 

223 

V. I-II . 

. 76 

vm. 29 


50. 2 45 

xv. 10, 12 . 
xv. 26 . 30; 

• 

164 

V. I, 2, II, 12-21 . 161 

viii. 29, 35 

381. . 192 

307, 3°9f 

V. 2 . 

49. 204 

viii. 32 


288, 318 

xvi. 7 . 

• 

303 

v. 5 • 69, 77, 133 

viii. 34 


. 226 

xvi. 11 • 

• 

328 

v. 8 . 7c 

, 133* 287 

viii. 37 


. 2 oof 

xvi. 13f 

303. 305 

v. 8, 10 

. 318 

viii. 38 


207, 327 

xvi. 24 . 

• 

219 

v. 12, 15-19 

. 27ff 

ix. 1 . 


. 73 

xvii. 4 . 

• 

iii 

v. 12-19 

. 32 

ix. 6-13 


. 247 

xvii. II 

• 

290 

vi. 2-11 

. 170 

ix. 8 . 


• 52 

xvii. 19 

no. 

141 

vi. 2, iof . 

. 176 

ix. 18 . 


. 268 

xvii. 21 . 

• 

168 

vi. 6 . 

• 175 

ix. 26 . 


• 5 1 

xvii. 21-23 . 

• 

166 

vi. 6,12,17,19, 20 17 

x. 14 . 

• 

• 215 

xvii. 22 . 

• 

3*7 

vi. 10 . 

in, 163 

x. 17 . 


• 265 

xvii. 24 

• 

169 

vi. 11 . 150, 

163, 165, 

xi. 8 • 


. 267 

Acts 


vi. n, 19 . 

175 

, 120 

xi. 20-23 

xii. I . 


• 205 
120f, 209 

i. 5 • • 

1 

M3 

vi. 14 . • 

. 183 

xii. 13. 


• ”5 

ii. 14-36 . 

• 

245 

vi. 39 . 

. 165 

xiv. 6, 14 


. 123 

ii. 17 . • 

• 

9 

vii. 1-4 • 

. 18 

xiv. 7 . 


. 120 

iii 14. • 

• 

no 

vii. 4 . • 

170, i83f 

xv. 3 . 


• in 

iii. 21 . • 

• 

109 

vii. 7 . • 

. 182 

XV. 25f, 32 


. II 5 

iv. 24 • • 

• 

228 

vii. 7f • 

. 184 

xv. 3of 


• 220 

iv. 27 . • 

• 

no 

vii. 14 . 

. 186 

xvi. 2 . 


• ii5 

vi. 13 . • 

• 

108 

vii. 14-25 • 

18, 39, 64 

xvi. 25 


• 246 

viii. 33 • 

x. 15 . • 

• 

• 

108 

122 

vii. 23 . 

viii. 1-16 - 

8, 202 
. 82 

i Corinthians 

X. 22 . • 

• 

109 

viii. 2 . . 

. 186 

i. 2 . 

• 

. I! 5 

x. 44, 47 • 

• 

74 

viii. 2, 4, 9, I3f . 143 

i. 18 . 

• 

• 216 

xi. 15 . 

• 

74 

viii. 2-16 . 

. 64 

ii. 7 . 

• 

• 246 














346 INDEX TO PASSAGES OF SCRIPTURE 


ii. II . 

PAGE 

. . 66 

iii. 16. 

• . 121 

iii. 23 . 

• ill, 120 

iv. 15 . 

. . 88 

vi. gi . 

• . 185 

vi. 19 . 

• . I20f 

vii. 14. 

• . 121 

vii. 34. 

. . i I 9 f 

viii. 6 . 

. 160, 321 

ix. 2of 

. 186 

ix. 23-27 

• 199, 206 

X. I-I 2 

• . 206 

x. 17 . 

• . 229 

X. 20f 

• - 3 2 9 

xi. 1 . 

• . 162 

xii. 3 . 

. . 321 

xii. 4-6, II 

. • 308 

xii. 28. 

• . 216 

XV. 2lf 

. 28, 32 

xv. 44 

. . 28 

XV. 57. 

• . 2oof 

xvi. 21 

• . *34 


2 Corinthians 


1. 11 . 

• 

• 

220 

i. 12 

• 

• 

78 

i. 22 . 

• 

• 

65 

iii. 6 • 

• 

• 

24 

iv. 4 . 

• 

• 

329 

v. 7 . 

• 

• 

149 

v. 13-17 

• 

• 

135 

v. 15 • 

• 

• 

120 

v. 17 . 

I42, 

165, 

197 

V. 18 . 

• 


161 

V. 21 . 

• 


113 

vii. I • 

• 

176, 

209 

viii. 9 . 


• 

162 


Galatians 


ii. 

16 . 

. 

• 5 i 

ii. 

19 . 

• 

. 183 

ii. 

20 . 

133 , 

144, 149, 


153) 166, 

* 170, 305 

ii. 

24 . 

• 

. 170 

iii. 

. 2f . 

• 

64, 142 

iii. 

4 • 

• 

. 149 

iii, 

.8 . 

• 

• 5 i 

iii. 

i 3 f 

• 

. 142 

iii. 

19 . 

• 

• 325 


PAGE 


m. 21, 23 


. 24 

iii. 26 . 


Sh 6 3 

iii. 26f 


. 60 

iii. 26-iv. 7 


. 82 

iii. 29 . 


. 55 

iv. 5 • 


• 63 

iv. 6 52f, 63, 68f, 227 

iv. 7 . 


5 2 » 55 

iv. 21 . 


. 182 

v. i6f 


8, 64, 179 

v. 16, 18, 22 

. 142 

v. 16-26 


• 7 i 

v. 16-vi. 10. 

. 82 

v. 19-21 


• 185 

v. 22 . 


• 64 

vi. 14. 


• 170 

vi. 15 . 


. 142 

Ephesians 

i. 4 . 


119, 246 

i- 5 • 


53 , 89 

i. 9 . 


. 246 

i 13^ • 


65, 89 

i. 13* 19 


. 149 

i. 14, 18 


. 56 

i. 16-23 


. 220 

i. igf . 


• 14 2 

i. 21 . 


• 327 

ii. 1 - 3 , 5 


. 20 

ii. 2 . 


. 329 

ii. 3 • 


. 25 

ii. 4 . 


. 287 

ii- 5 * • 


169, 171 

ii. 10 . 


. 142 

ii. 13, 20f 


. 165 

iii. 4-6 


• 247 

iii. 14-19 


212, 220 

iii. 17. 


I 5 °» 305 

iv. 11 . 


. 216 

iv. I3f 


. 212 

iv. 19 . 


• 19 

iv. 24. 


• 142 

iv. 30 . 


. 65 

v. 5 • 


• 56 

v. 27 . 


. 119 

vi. nf 


• 329 

vi. 11-17 


• 330 

vi. 12 . 


. 200 

vi. 16 . 


150, 202 

vi. 17 . 


• 305 

vi. I9f 


. 220 


PAGE 

Philippians 


i. 6 

141 

, 204, 211 

L 9-11 

• 

. 211 

ii. 4-8 . 

• 

. 162 

ii. 12 . 

• 

. 198 

ii. I2f. 

• 

141, 201 

ii. 15 • 

• 

. 52 

iii. 12 . 

• 

• 212 

iii. 12-14 

• 

. 199 

iii. 21 . 

• 

. 163 

COLOSSIANS 

i. i6f . 

• 

• 327 

i. 20 . 

• 

• 161 

i. 28 . 

• 

. 216 

i. 29 . 

• 

• 201 

ii. nf, 20 

• 

. 170 

ii. 12 . 

• 

• 151 

ii. 13 • 

• 

20, 171 

ii. 14 . 

• 

. 24 

iii. 1 . 

• 

• 170 

iii. 24 . 

• 

. 56 

iv. 3f, 12 

• 

• 220 

i Thessalonians 

i. 3, 12 

• 

. 210 

iii 10. 

• 

209, 211 

iv. 16 . 

• 

• 327 

v. 23 . 

• 

ngf, 209 

2 Thessalonians 

i* 3 • 

• 

• 210 

ii. 13 • 

• 

r 150 

iii. if . 

• 

220 

1 Timothy 

ii. 14 . 

• 

. 28 

iv. 4 . 

• 

• 122 

v. 6 . 

• 

• 20 

vi 12. 

• 

• 199 

2 Timothy 

L 9 f . 

• 

. 248 

i. 12 . 

• 

• 153 

ii. 3 f • 

• 

• 200 

ii. 12 • 

• 

• 170 

iv. 8 

• 

• 199 

iv. 18 . 

• 

• 204 
















INDEX TO PASSAGES OP SCRIPTURE 347 


PAGZ 

Titus 


11. 14 . 

. 177 

iii. 5 . 

. 88 

iii. 7 • 

• 56 

Philemon 

18 . . 

• 29 

Hebrews 

i. 2 . 

56, 161 

i. 4 • • 

. 327 

i. 14 • 

. 56 

ii. 2 . . 

• 325 

ii. 4 • • 

• 74 

ii. 10 . • 

• 161 

ii. IO-I 2 • 

• 56 

ii. 17 . • 

. 300 

iii. 1 • • 

in, 116 

iii. 2 • • 

. iii 

iv. 9 . • 

• 121 

v. 12-14 • 

. 213 

vi. 10 . • 

. 116 

vi. nf, 18 • 

• * 5 * 

vii. 25. • 

161, 226 

ix. 14. • 

iii, 177 

x. 10 • . 

. iii 

x. 15 . 

• 74 

xi. • • 

• 151 

xii. 7f. • 

. 56 

xii. 10 • 

• 290 

xii. 14 . 

119 

xiii. 15, 21 • 

• 161 

James 

i. 5* • • 

• 222 

i. 18 . • 

• *7 


ii. 5 . 

• 

PAGE 

• 56 

ii. 8-12 

• 

• 

I87 

ii. 19 . 

• 

• 

329 

I 

Peter 


>•3 • 

• 


86 

i. 4 • 

• 

• 

56 

i. 5 • 

• 

ISI. 

177 

i. 11 . 

• 


67 

i. 15 ^ • 

• 

• 

119 

1. I 5 f • 

• 

• 

290 

i. 21 . 

• 

• 

161 

i. 23 . 

• 

• 

87 

ii. 5 . 

• 

• 

161 

»• 5 * 9 

• 

• 

121 

ii. 21-24 

• 

• 

163 

iii. 15 . 

• 

• 

290 

iii. I7f 

• 

• 

163 

iii. 22 . 

• 

• 

327 

iv. 1 . 

• 

• 

163 

v. 8f • 

• 

• 

200 

I 

John 


»• 7 , 9 - 

• 

. 

177 

ii. 1 • 

• 

. 

304 

ii. 6 . 

• 

I64, 166 

ii. 12 . 

• 


79 

ii. 12-14 

• 

• 

213 

ii. 13f 

• 

• 

200 

ii. 20 . 

• 

• 

no 

ii. 29 . 

• 

• 

85 

11. 29-111. 24 

• 

82 

111. 1, 2, 

8 . 

• 

85 

iii. 1, 9f 

# 

• 

52 

iii. 6 • 

• 

166, 

181 

iii. 9 • 

• 

• 

86 


iii. 14. 

PAGE 

• . 79 

iii. 24. 

• 79. *67 

iv. 4 . 

• 167, 201 

iv. 8, 16 

. . 288 

iv. 9 . 

• . 161 

iv. 9f . 

• 133 . 3i8 

iv. 10 . 

• . 287 

iv. I2f 

. 80, 167 

iv. 15 . 

. . 167 

iv. 16 . 

. 133 , 167 

iv. 19, 21 

. . 134 

v. 1 . 

• . 61 

V. I, 2 

. . 86 

v. 4f . 

• • 201 

v. I4f 

. . 223 

Jude 

6 

• • 330 

9 

• • 327 

Revelation 

ii. 7, 11, 17, 26 . 200 

iii. 7 . 

. . no 

iii. 21 . 

• • 169 

iv. 6-8 

. . 326 

iv. 8 . 

• • 290 

v. 8 . 

• .116 

viii. 3f 

• .116 

xii. 7 . 

• 327. 329 

xii. 11 

• . 20 >f 

xiii. 8. 

• . 248 

XV. 2 . 

• . 200 

xvii. 8. 

. . 248 

xxi. 7 . 

• • 200 

XXL 8 • 

• .207 


















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